The
ChristChrist myth theory (also known as the
JesusJesus myth theory, Jesus
mythicism, mythicism,[1] or
JesusJesus ahistoricity theory)[2] is "the view
that the person known as
JesusJesus of
NazarethNazareth had no historical
existence."[3] Alternatively in terms given by
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman as per his
criticism of mythicism[4] "the historical
JesusJesus did not exist. Or if
he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of
Christianity".[quote 1]
Most
ChristChrist mythicists follow a threefold argument: they question the
reliability of the
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles and the
GospelsGospels regarding the
historicity of Jesus; they note the lack of information on
JesusJesus in
non-Christian sources from the first and early second century; and
they argue that early
ChristianityChristianity was syncretistic and mythological
from the beginning,[5] as reflected in both the
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles and
the gospels.
The
ChristChrist myth theory is a fringe theory, supported by few tenured or
emeritus specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines. It
deviates from the mainstream historical view, which is that while the
gospels include many legendary elements these are religious
elaborations added to the accounts of a historical
JesusJesus who was
crucified[note 1] in the 1st-century Roman province of Judea.[6][7]

6.2.1 Lack of support for mythicism
6.2.2 Questioning the competence of proponents
6.2.3 Opponents

6.2.3.1 Bart Ehrman
6.2.3.2 Maurice Casey

6.3 Traditional and Evangelical Christianity

7 Documentaries
8 See also
9 Notes
10 Quotes
11 References
12 Sources

12.1 Printed sources
12.2 Web-sources

13 Further reading
14 External links

JesusJesus and the origins of Christianity[edit]
See also:
JesusJesus in Christianity, Historicity of Jesus, Sources for the
historicity of Jesus, Historical Jesus, Quest for the historical
Jesus, and Portraits of the historical Jesus
The origins and rapid rise of Christianity, as well as the historical
JesusJesus and the historicity of Jesus, are a matter of longstanding
debates in theological and historical research. While
ChristianityChristianity may
have started with an early nucleus of followers of Jesus,[quote 2]
within a few years after the presumed death of
JesusJesus in c. AD 33,
before Paul started preaching, a number of proto-Christian communities
seem to have been in existence.[8] A central question is how these
communities developed and what their original convictions were,[8] as
a wide range of beliefs and ideas can be found in early Christianity,
including adoptionism and docetism,[quote 3] and also Gnostic
traditions which used Christian imagery,[quote 4] which were all
deemed heretical by proto-orthodox Christianity.[note 2]
Mainstream scholarship views
JesusJesus as a real person who was
subsequently deified,[6][9] whereas traditional
Christian theologyChristian theology and
dogmas view
JesusJesus as the incarnation of God/
ChristChrist on earth.
Mythicists take yet another approach, presuming a widespread set of
Jewish ideas on personified aspects of God, which were subsequently
historicised when proto-
ChristianityChristianity spread among non-Jewish converts.
Mainstream historical view[edit]
See also: Textual criticism, Historical criticism, Biblical
hermeneutics, and Quest for the historical Jesus
The mainstream historical view is that while the gospels include
mythical or legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added
to the accounts of a historical
JesusJesus who did live in 1st-century
Roman Palestine.[6][9][note 3] While scholars differ on the
historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of
Jesus,[10] the baptism and the crucifixion are two events in the life
of
JesusJesus which are subject to "almost universal assent".[note 1]
According to historian Alanna Nobbs,

While historical and theological debates remain about the actions and
significance of this figure, his fame as a teacher, and his
crucifixion under the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, may be described
as historically certain.[11]

New TestamentNew Testament scholar
Bart D. EhrmanBart D. Ehrman states that
JesusJesus "certainly
existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian
or non-Christian, agrees."[12][13] and also states that the existence
of
JesusJesus and his crucifixion by the Romans is attested to by sources
including
JosephusJosephus and Tacitus.[12]
JesusJesus is being studied by a number of scholarly disciplines.[note 4]
Criteria being used to determine whether Biblical passages can be
attributed to
JesusJesus include multiple attestation, dissimilarity,
embarrassment, historical plausibility, rejection and execution,
congruence. While there is widespread scholarly agreement on the
existence of
JesusJesus as a historical figure, the portraits of
JesusJesus have
often differed from each other and from the image portrayed in the
gospel accounts,[14][15][16] and it has been argued that "the only
thing
New TestamentNew Testament scholars seem to agree on is Jesus' historical
existence".[17]
Traditional and modern Christian views[edit]
See also: Christology, Christian apologetics, Christian
fundamentalism, Biblical literalism, and Evangelicalism
Traditional
Christian theologyChristian theology and dogmas view
JesusJesus as the
incarnation of God/
ChristChrist on earth and as the Messiah, whose death was
a sacrifice that procured atonement for all who believe
JesusJesus to be
the Christ. According to Christian traditions, the
GospelsGospels and the
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles are inspired writings,[18] which tell us in a
reliable way about the birth and the life of Jesus, his ministry and
sayings, and his crucifixion and resurrection, according to God's
plan.[note 5]
ChristChrist myth theory[edit]
According to modern proponents of the
ChristChrist myth theory, Christianity
started with the belief in a new deity called Jesus,[quote 5][quote 6]
"a spiritual, mythical figure",[quote 7] who was derived from Jewish
writings,[19][20] which shows Greek influences and similarities with
Pagan saviour deities. Elements of the
ChristChrist myth and its cultus can
be found in the Pauline epistles,[quote 8][quote 9][quote 10] see the
ChristChrist hymn of Philippians 2:6–11.[21] This new deity was fleshed
out in the Gospels—which added a narrative framework and Cynic-like
teachings—and eventually came to be perceived as a historical
biography.[quote 6] According to Professor of German George Albert
Wells et al., these sayings may come from a real person, of whom close
to nothing can be known.[quote 11][quote 12][quote 13][quote 14]
However, for such a person to be considered "the historical
JesusJesus in
any pertinent sense", historian
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier contends such a person
must comply with his definition of a minimal historical Jesus.[quote
15]
Mythicists are critical of the conclusions and presuppositions of
historicity proponents.[quote 16]
TheologianTheologianRobert M. PriceRobert M. Price notes
that "consensus is no criterion" for the historicity of Jesus.[quote
17] Carrier asserts that "the consensus is not reliable in the study
of the historical Jesus".[quote 18] Carrier also claims that
historical methodologies often use fallacious reasoning[quote 19] and
that they must be drastically revised.[quote 20][quote 19] Theologian
Thomas L. Thompson contends that the present state of New Testament
scholarship viz.
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman "is such that an established scholar
should present his Life of Jesus, without considering whether this
figure, in fact, lived as a historical person" and that such
assumptions "reflect a serious problem regarding the historical
quality of scholarship in biblical studies".[20]
While proponents like Carrier, author Earl Doherty, Price et al. are
concerned with the origins of Christianity, the perception of and
debate about the
ChristChrist myth theory has increasingly turned to the
simpler question whether
JesusJesus existed or not[quote 21][quote
22][quote 23] and consequently with some scholars proposing a more
moderate position.[quote 24][quote 25]
Some mythicists hold—in terms given by Price—the
JesusJesus agnosticism
viewpoint,[quote 26][quote 27] while others go further and hold the
JesusJesus atheism viewpoint.[quote 28][quote 29][22] Some scholars have
made the case that there are a number of plausible Jesuses that could
have existed, but that there can be no certainty as to which
JesusJesus was
the historical Jesus.[quote 30][23][24] Others have said that Jesus
may have lived far earlier, in a dimly remembered remote past.[25] A
number of writers adduce various arguments to show that Christianity
has syncretistic or mythical roots. As such, the historical Jesus
should not be regarded as the founder of the religion, even if he did
exist.[26][quote 31][quote 32]
Arguments[edit]
According to Van Voorst, most
ChristChrist mythicists follow a threefold
argument: they question the reliability of the
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles and
the
GospelsGospels regarding the historicity of Jesus; they note the lack of
information on
JesusJesus in non-Christian sources from the first and early
second century; and they argue that early
ChristianityChristianity was
syncretistic and mythological from the beginning.[5]
Overview of main arguments[edit]
Most
ChristChrist mythicists argue that the evidence for the existence of a
historical
JesusJesusChristChrist is weak at best,[quote 33] pointing at a
series of perceived peculiarities in the sources which they regard as
untrustworthy for a historical account.[quote 34] Early Christian and
other sources lack biographical information on Jesus,[quote 35] the
so-called argument from silence.[27][quote 36][quote 37][quote
38][note 6] Instead, the
ChristChrist of Paul[27][quote 39][note 7] and the
JesusJesus of the
GospelsGospels are of a mythical and allegorical
nature.[27][quote 40] They further argue that the
GospelsGospels are a
composite of various strands of thought,[28][29][quote 41] relying on
Jewish writings,[quote 34] and note the similarities of early
ChristianityChristianity and the
ChristChrist figure with the mystery religions of the
Greco-Roman world.[27][quote 37][quote 42]

Lack of biographical information in the
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles - the
argument from silence. The Pauline epistles[note 8] are dismissed
because—aside from a few passages which may have been
interpolations—they make no reference to a historical
JesusJesus who
lived in the flesh on Earth.[quote 43] There is a complete absence of
any detailed biographical information such as might be expected if
JesusJesus had been a contemporary of Paul,[30][quote 44] therefore he is
probably writing about either a mythical entity,[31] a celestial
deity,[quote 45] or "a savior figure patterned after similar figures
within ancient mystery religions"[quote 44][quote 46]—named
Jesus.[32][21][quote 47]
The
GospelsGospels are not historical records - The
GospelsGospels are not
historical records, but theological writings,[33][34] which are based
on a variety of sources and influences, including Old Testament
writings,[19][20] Greek stoic philosophy and the exegetical methods of
Philo.[quote 48][note 9] The genre of the
GospelsGospels are myth or
legendary fiction[35][36][note 10] which have imposed "a fictitious
historical narrative" on a "mythical cosmic savior figure"[quote
49][26][quote 46] by weaving together various pseudo-historical Jesus
traditions,[quote 41][28][note 11] most notably the "supernatural
personage" of Paul's epistles[28][quote 41] and "ideas very important
in the Jewish Wisdom literature".[28][quote 41]
No independent eyewitness accounts - No independent eyewitness
accounts survive, in spite of the fact that many authors were writing
at that time.[37][quote 50] Early second-century Roman accounts
contain very little evidence[38][quote 51] and may depend on Christian
sources.[39][40]
Diversity and syncretism in early
ChristianityChristianity -
ChristianityChristianity arose in
the
Greco-Roman worldGreco-Roman world of the first and second century AD, synthesizing
Greek and Jewish philosophy of the Second Temple period.[26][41] Early
ChristianityChristianity was widely diverse and syncretistic, sharing common
philosophical and religious ideas with other religions of the
time.[26][41][27] These included the ideas of personified aspects of
God[note 12] and proto-Gnosticism, and of the salvation
figures—featured in mystery religions—who were often (but not
always) a dying-and-rising god.[quote 52][quote 53][quote 46][note 13]

Main articles:
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles and Authorship of the Pauline epistles
The seven undisputed
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles considered by scholarly
consensus to be genuine epistles[note 8] are generally dated to AD
50–60 (i.e. approximately twenty to thirty years after the generally
accepted time period for the death of
JesusJesus around AD 30–36) and are
the earliest surviving Christian texts that may include information
about Jesus.[42][quote 54]
Mainstream view[edit]
Modern biblical scholarship notes that Paul has relatively little to
say on the biographical information of Jesus.[43][44] Nevertheless,
most scholars view the Pauline letters as essential elements in the
study of the historical Jesus.[42][45][46][47][48][excessive
citations] Bishop and historian Paul Barnett explains that

Paul's relative lack of detailed reference to the historical
ChristChrist is
usually explained in one of two ways: either Paul knew only that there
was such a man but knew (or cared to know) little more (Bultmann), or
he knew quite a lot but didn't need to elaborate this in his letters
beyond what his readers already knew."[49][50]:184

The Pauline letters at times refer to creeds, or confessions of faith,
that predate their writings.[51][52][53] For instance, 1 Corinthians
15:11 refers to others before Paul who preached the creed.[53] These
pre-Pauline creeds date to within a few years of Jesus' death and
developed within the Christian community in Jerusalem.[54] Scholars
generally view these as indications that the existence and death of
JesusJesus was part of
Christian tradition a few years after his death and
over a decade before the writing of the Pauline epistles.[52][54] New
Testament scholar James Dunn states that 1 Corinthians 15:3 indicates
that in the 30s Paul was taught about the death of
JesusJesus a few years
earlier.[55]
TheologianTheologianGregory A. BoydGregory A. Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy, Professor of Biblical
and Theological Studies at Bethel University,[56] present a summary of
information about Jesus' earthly life presented in the Pauline
epistles. For example, in Galatians 1:19, Paul says he met with James,
the "Lord's brother";[57] another that 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 refers
to those who had interacted with
JesusJesus as Paul's contemporaries; and
in 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 Paul refers to the
JewsJews "who both killed
the Lord Jesus" and "drove out us" as the same people, indicating that
the death of
JesusJesus was within the same time frame as the persecution
of Paul.[58] Eddy and Boyd doubt that Paul viewed
JesusJesus similar to the
savior deities found in ancient mystery religions.[59]
Additional elements in the Pauline letters that pertain to the
existence of
JesusJesus and his being a Jew include Galatians 4:4 which
states that he was "born of a woman" and Romans 1:3 that he was "born
under the law".[quote 55][45][46][47][60][61][excessive citations]
Mythicists' view[edit]
ChristChrist myth theorists generally reject the usefulness of these
letters.[62][63] According to Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, mythicists
argue that "a fictitious historical narrative" was imposed on the
"mythical cosmic savior figure" created by Paul.[quote 49]
TheologianTheologianWillem Christiaan van ManenWillem Christiaan van Manen of the Dutch school of radical
criticism noted various anachronisms in the Pauline Epistles: Van
Manen claimed that they could not have been written in their final
form earlier than the 2nd century and he also noted that the
Marcionite school was the first to publish the epistles and that
MarcionMarcion (c. 85 – c. 160) used them as justification for his
gnostic and docetic views that Jesus' incarnation was not in a
physical body. Van Manen also studied Marcion's version of Galatians
in contrast to the canonical version and argued that the canonical
version was a later revision which de-emphasized the Gnostic
aspects.[64]
Wells criticized the infrequency of the reference to
JesusJesus in the
Pauline letters and has said there is no information in them about
Jesus' parents, place of birth, teachings, trial nor crucifixion.[63]
Wells also argues that Paul and the other epistle writers—the
earliest Christian writers—do not provide any support for the idea
that
JesusJesus lived early in the 1st century and that—for Paul—Jesus
may have existed many decades, if not centuries, before.[63][65]
According to Wells, the earliest strata of the New Testament
literature presented
JesusJesus as "a basically supernatural personage only
obscurely on Earth as a man at some unspecified period in the
past".[66] In The
JesusJesus Myth, Wells argues that two
JesusJesus narratives
fused into one: Paul's mythical
JesusJesus and a minimally historical Jesus
whose teachings were preserved in the Q document, a hypothetical
common source for the
GospelsGospels of Matthew and Luke.[67]
Price wrote that "the historical
JesusJesus problem replicates itself in
the case of Paul" and that the epistles have the same limitations as
the
GospelsGospels as historical evidence. Price sees the epistles as a
compilation of fragments (possibly with a
GnosticGnostic core)[68] and
contends that
MarcionMarcion was responsible for much of the Pauline corpus
or even wrote the letters himself, while criticizing the
circumstantial ad hominem fallacy of fellow
ChristChrist myth theorists
holding the mid-first-century dating of the epistles (e.g. Galatians
is conventionally dated c. AD 53)[69] for their own apologetical
reasons.[70][71] Price argues that passages such as Galatians
1:18–20, Galatians 4:4 and 1 Corinthians 15:3–11 are late Catholic
interpolations and that 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 was unlikely to have
been written by a Jewish person.[72]
Carrier argues that Paul is actually writing about a celestial deity
named Jesus: Carrier notes that there is little if any concrete
information about Christ's earthly life in the Pauline epistles, even
though
JesusJesus is mentioned over three hundred times.[73] According to
Carrier, the genuine
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles show that the Apostle Peter and
the Apostle Paul believed in a visionary or dream Jesus, based on a
pesher of
SeptuagintSeptuagint verses Zechariah 6 and 3, Daniel 9 and Isaiah
52–53.[74] Carrier further argues that according to Paul
(Philippians 2.7),
ChristChrist "came 'in the likeness of men' (homoiomati
anthropon) and was found 'in a form like a man' (schemati euretheis
hos anthropos) and (in Rom. 8.3) that he was only sent 'in the
likeness of sinful flesh' (en homoiomati sarkos hamartias). This is a
doctrine of a preexistent being assuming a human body, but not being
fully transformed into a man, just looking like one".[75]
The
GospelsGospels are not historical records[edit]
Main article: The Gospels
Dating and authorship[edit]
The general consensus of modern scholars is that Mark was the first
gospel to be written and dates from no earlier than c. AD 65, while
Matthew and Luke, which use it as a source, were written between AD 80
and 85.[76] The composition history of John is complex, but most
scholars see it taking place in stages beginning as early as before AD
70 and extending as late as the end of the century.[76] None of the
authors were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus,[77] though according
to scholar in theology
Richard Bauckham they may have received their
information directly from eyewitnesses.[78]
According to Carrier, "The
GospelsGospels cannot really be dated, nor are the
real authors known. Their names were assigned early, but not early
enough for us to be confident they were accurately known. It is based
on speculation that Mark was the first, written between AD 60 and 70,
Matthew second, between AD 70 and 80, Luke (and Acts) third, between
AD 80 and 90, and John last, between AD 90 and 100".[79]
Genre[edit]
According to Richard Burridge, priest and biblical scholar, any study
of the
GospelsGospels must first determine the genre under which they fall,
in order to interpret them correctly, since genre "is a key convention
guiding both the composition and the interpretation of writings".[80]
The gospels authors may have intended to write novels, myths,
histories, or biographies, which are different genres and have a
tremendous impact on how they ought to be interpreted. Among
contemporary scholars, there is consensus that the gospels are a type
of ancient biography,[81][82][83][84][85] though theologian Rudolf
Bultmann notes that the gospel authors had no interest in history or
in a historical Jesus.[86]
Robert Price notes support for the view that the gospels are a
fictional composition,[87] while Michael Vines, Professor of Religious
Studies at Lees–McRae College,[88] notes that the gospel of Mark may
have aspects similar to a Jewish novel.[89] Some myth proponents
suggest that some parts of the
New TestamentNew Testament were meant to appeal to
Gentiles as familiar allegories rather than history.[90]
Jewish sources[edit]
Arguments drawing comparisons between the New and Old Testaments have
traditionally been made by Christian theologians in defense of their
teachings, but without doubting a historical Jesus.[note 14]
Some myth proponents note that some stories in the
New TestamentNew Testament seem
to try to reinforce
Old TestamentOld Testament prophecies[90] and repeat stories
about figures like Elijah, Elisha,[91]
MosesMoses and
JoshuaJoshua in order to
appeal to Jewish converts.[92] Price notes that almost all the
Gospel-stories have parallels in Old Testamentical and other
traditions, concluding that the
GospelsGospels are no independent sources for
a historical Jesus, but "legend and myth, fiction and redaction".[93]
Greek influences[edit]
In
ChristChrist and the Caesars (1877), philosopher
Bruno BauerBruno Bauer suggested
that
ChristianityChristianity was a synthesis of the
StoicismStoicism of Seneca the
Younger, Greek Neoplatonism, and the Jewish theology of
PhiloPhilo as
developed by pro-Roman
JewsJews such as Josephus. This new religion was in
need of a founder and created its Christ.[94][26] In a review of
Bauer's work, Robert Price notes that Bauer's basic stance regarding
the Stoic tone and the fictional nature of the
GospelsGospels are still
repeated in contemporary scholarship.[87]
Fusion of characters[edit]
According to Wells, a minimally historical
JesusJesus existed, whose
teachings were preserved in the Q document.[95] According to Wells,
the
GospelsGospels weave together two
JesusJesus narratives, namely Paul's
mythical
JesusJesus and the Galilean preacher of the Q document.[95]
Doherty disagrees with Wells regarding this teacher of the Q-document,
arguing that he was an allegoral character who personified Wisdom and
came to be regarded as the founder of the Q-community.[28][96]
According to Doherty, Q's
JesusJesus and Paul's
ChristChrist were combined in the
GospelGospel of Mark by a predominantly Gentile community.[28]
According to Doherty, the
JesusJesus of Paul was a divine Son of God,
existing in a spiritual realm[27] where he was crucified and
resurrected.[97] This mythological
JesusJesus was based on exegesis of the
Old TestamentOld Testament and mystical visions of a risen Jesus.[97] Price argues
that the
GospelsGospels are a type of legendary fiction[35] and that the
story of
JesusJesus portrayed in the
GospelsGospels fits the mythic hero
archetype.[36]
No independent eyewitness accounts[edit]
Lack of surviving historic records[edit]
Mainstream biblical scholars point out that much of the writings of
antiquity have been lost[98] and that there was little written about
any Jew or Christian in this period.[99][100] Ehrman points out that
we do not have archaeological or textual evidence for the existence of
most people in the ancient world, even famous people like Pontius
Pilate, whom the myth theorists agree to have existed.[101] Robert
Hutchinson notes that this is also true of Josephus, despite the fact
that he was "a personal favorite of the Roman Emperor Vespasian".[102]
Hutchinson quotes Ehrman, who notes that
JosephusJosephus is never mentioned
in 1st century Greek and Roman sources, despite being "a personal
friend of the emperor".[102] According to Classical historian and
popular author Michael Grant, if the same criterion is applied to
others: "We can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages
whose reality as historical figures is never questioned".[103]
Myth proponents claim there is significance in the lack of surviving
historic records about
JesusJesus of
NazarethNazareth from any non-Jewish author
until the second century,[104][105][106] adding that
JesusJesus left no
writings or other archaeological evidence.[107] Using the argument
from silence, they note that Jewish philosopher
PhiloPhilo of Alexandria
did not mention
JesusJesus when he wrote about the cruelty of Pontius
Pilate around 40 AD.[108]
JosephusJosephus and Tacitus[edit]
There are three non-Christian sources which are typically used to
study and establish the historicity of Jesus—two mentions in
JosephusJosephus and one mention in the Roman source
Tacitus.[109][110][111][112] According to John Dominic Crossan:

That [Jesus] was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever
be, since both
JosephusJosephus and
TacitusTacitus [...] agree with the Christian
accounts on at least that basic fact.[113]

Josephus[edit]
Main article:
JosephusJosephus on Jesus
Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD,
includes two references to the biblical
JesusJesus in Books 18 and 20. The
general scholarly view is that while the longer passage in book 18,
known as the Testimonium Flavianum, is most likely not authentic in
its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted
of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian
interpolation or forgery.[114][115][quote 56] Myth proponents also
argue that the Testimonium Flavianum may have been a partial
interpolation or forgery by Christian apologist
EusebiusEusebius in the 4th
century or by others.[116][117][note 15]
The other mention in
JosephusJosephus is as follows:

...the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James

According to
JosephusJosephus scholar Louis H. Feldman, "few have doubted the
genuineness" of Josephus' reference to
JesusJesus in Antiquities 20, 9, 1
and it is only disputed by a small number of
scholars.[123][124][125][126]
Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd, who are critical of
ChristChrist myth theorists,
note that
JosephusJosephus "mentions twenty-one other people with the name
Jesus,"[note 16] and argue that when
JosephusJosephus called James the
"brother" of
JesusJesus "called Christ" in the Antiquities, he did so to
distinguish him "from the other persons named 'Jesus' he had already
mentioned."[127][note 17]
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier disagrees, proposing that the original text referred
to a brother of the high priest
JesusJesus son of Damneus, named James, who
is mentioned in the same narrative, in which James (the brother of
Jesus) is executed by Ananus ben Ananus.[128][note 18] Carrier further
argues that the words "the one called Christ" likely resulted from the
accidental insertion of a marginal note added by some unknown
reader.[128]
Others speculate that he was referring to a mythic
ChristChrist that had
already been historicized, or to fraternal brotherhood rather than a
literal sibling.[129] This is dismissed by some in mainstream academia
on the grounds that there is no evidence of a supposed "Jerusalem
brotherhood".[130]
Tacitus[edit]
Main article:
TacitusTacitus on Christ
Roman historian
TacitusTacitus referred to "Christus" and his execution by
Pontius PilatePontius Pilate in his Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter
44:[131]

...a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the
populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the
extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of
our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.[132]

The very negative tone of Tacitus' comments on Christians make most
experts believe that the passage is extremely unlikely to have been
forged by a Christian scribe.[133] The
TacitusTacitus reference is now widely
accepted as an independent confirmation of Christ's crucifixion,[134]
although some scholars question the historical value of the passage on
various grounds.[133][135][136][137][138][139][140][141]
ChristChrist myth theory supporters such as
G. A. Wells and Carrier contend
that sources such as
TacitusTacitus and others, which were written decades
after the supposed events, include no independent traditions that
relate to Jesus, and hence can provide no confirmation of historical
facts about him.[39][40]
Jewish and Jewish-Christian sources[edit]
Some myth proponents assert that the writings of Epiphanius of Salamis
makes reference to a group of Jewish Christians who held that Jesus
lived during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus—"placing
JesusJesus about
100 BCE"—and that this was also the view presented in the Jewish
writings about
JesusJesus in the
TalmudTalmud and the Toledot Yeshu.[142][143]
According to the Panarion by Epiphanius, the Jewish-Christian sect
known as the Nazarenes (Ναζωραιοι) began as Jewish converts
of the Apostles.[144][145]
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier contends that "Epiphanius,
in Panarion 29, says there was a sect of still-Torah-observant
Christians who taught that
JesusJesus lived and died in the time of
Jannaeus, and all the Jewish sources on
ChristianityChristianity that we have
(from the
TalmudTalmud to the Toledot Yeshu) report no other view than that
JesusJesus lived during the time of Jannaeus".[146][147]
Other sources[edit]
In
JesusJesus Outside the
New TestamentNew Testament (2000), mainstream scholar Van
Voorst considers references to
JesusJesus in classical writings, Jewish
writings, hypothetical sources of the canonical Gospels, and extant
Christian writings outside the New Testament. Van Voorst concludes
that non-Christian sources provide "a small but certain corroboration
of certain
New TestamentNew Testament historical traditions on the family
background, time of life, ministry, and death of Jesus", as well as
"evidence of the content of Christian preaching that is independent of
the New Testament", while extra-biblical Christian sources give access
to "some important information about the earliest traditions on
Jesus". However,
New TestamentNew Testament sources remain central for "both the
main lines and the details about Jesus' life and teaching".[148]
Diversity and syncretism[edit]
See also: Origins of
ChristianityChristianity and Gnosticism
Early Christian diversity[edit]
See also: Diversity in early Christian theology
Early
ChristianityChristianity was wildly diverse, with proto-orthodoxy and
"heretical" views like gnosticism alongside each other.[149][150]
According to Doherty, the rapid growth of early Christian communities
and the great variety of ideas cannot be explained by a single
missionary effort, but points to parallel developments, which arose at
various places and competed for support. Paul's arguments against
rival apostles also point to this diversity.[41] Doherty further notes
that
YeshuaYeshua (Jesus) is a generic name, meaning "Yahweh saves" and
refers to the concept of divine salvation, which could apply to any
kind of saving entity or Wisdom.[41]
SyncretismSyncretism - Judeo-Greco-Roman background[edit]
See also:
Religious syncretismReligious syncretism and Mytheme
According to Doherty, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, the
Greek culture and language spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean
world, influencing the already existing cultures there.[41] The Roman
conquest of this area added to the cultural diversity, but also to a
sense of alienation and pessimism.[41] A rich diversity of religious
and philosophical ideas was available and
JudaismJudaism was held in high
regard by non-
JewsJews for its monotheistic ideas and its high moral
standards.[41] Yet monotheism was also offered by Greek philosophy,
especially Platonism, with its high God and the intermediary
Logos.[41] According to Doherty, "Out of this rich soil of ideas arose
Christianity, a product of both Jewish and Greek philosophy",[41]
echoing Bruno Bauer, who argued that
ChristianityChristianity was a synthesis of
Stoicism, Greek
NeoplatonismNeoplatonism and Jewish thought.[26]
Similarities to Jewish celestial Jesus[edit]
Mainstream scholars have noted the extent and significance of Jewish
belief in a chief angel acting as a heavenly mediator during the
Second Temple period,[151][152][153] as well as the similarities
between
JesusJesus and this chief celestial angel.[154]
According to Carrier, originally "
JesusJesus was the name of a celestial
being, subordinate to God".[155] According to Carrier, "This 'Jesus'
would most likely have been the same archangel identified by
PhiloPhilo of
Alexandria as already extant in Jewish theology".[156]
PhiloPhilo knew this
figure by all of the attributes Paul already knew
JesusJesus by: the
firstborn son of God (
Epistle to the RomansEpistle to the Romans 8:29), the celestial image
of God (
Second Epistle to the CorinthiansSecond Epistle to the Corinthians 4:4) and God’s agent of
creation (
First Epistle to the CorinthiansFirst Epistle to the Corinthians 8:6). He was also God’s
celestial high priest (Hebrews 2:17, 4:14, etc.) and God’s Logos.
PhiloPhilo says this being was identified as the figure named
JesusJesus in the
BookBook of Zechariah.[quote 47]
Similarities to
LogosLogos and Wisdom[edit]
Separately from mythicism, scholar of ancient religious studies Peter
Schäfer contends that Philo's
LogosLogos was likely derived from his
understanding of the "postbiblical Wisdom literature, in particular
the Wisdom of Solomon".[157] Professor of
New TestamentNew Testament at Loyola
University Urban C. von Wahlde notes that the
Wisdom literature and
the philosophical writings of
PhiloPhilo may furnish "the background to the
LogosLogos of the Johannine Prologue".[158]
According to myhticists,
ChristianityChristianity originated from a Jewish
sect[159] in a milieu where some
JewsJews practised a form of
proto-gnosticism[citation needed]—seeking salvation by revealed
gnosis—via a mediator between God and humans, i.e. an intermediary
variously known as "one like a son of man", "the divine Logos", etc.
From the cultus of Paul, a divergent form of this salvation theology
was later promoted for non-Jews.[160][quote 57][quote 58][quote 59]
According to Doherty, a somewhat similar idea to the Greek
LogosLogos was
found in Judaism, where Wisdom, a personified part of God, brought
knowledge of God and the Law.[41] Similar ideas were also developed in
other cultures and religions.[41] According to Wells, the historical
JesusJesus was derived from this Wisdom traditions, the personification of
an eternal aspect of God, who came to visit human beings.[161] Doherty
notes that the concept of a spiritual
ChristChrist was the result of common
philosophical and religious ideas of the first and second century AD,
in which the idea of an intermediary force between God and the world
were common.[27] Doherty further notes that divine inspiration was a
common concept.[27]
Similarities with mystery religions[edit]
Christian theologians have cited the mythic hero archetype as a
defense of Christian teaching while completely affirming a historical
Jesus.[162][163][note 19] Secular academics have also pointed out that
the teachings of
JesusJesus marked "a radical departure from all the
conventions by which heroes had been defined".[164] Many mainstream
biblical scholars respond that most of these parallels are either
coincidences or without historical basis and/or that these parallels
do not prove that a
JesusJesus figure did not live.[165][note 20]
According to Doherty, the
ChristChrist of Paul shares similarities with the
Greco-Roman mystery cults.[27] Authors
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
explicitly argue that
JesusJesus was a deity, akin to the mystery
cults,[170] while Dorothy Murdock argues that the
ChristChrist myth draws
heavily on the Egyptian story of
OsirisOsiris and Horus.[171] According to
Robert Price, the story of
JesusJesus portrayed in the
GospelsGospels is akin to
the mythic hero archetype.[36] The mythic hero archetype is present in
many cultures who often have miraculous conceptions or virgin births
heralded by wise men and marked by a star, are tempted by or fight
evil forces, die on a hill, appear after death and then ascend to
heaven.[172]
18th- and 19th-century proponents[edit]

French historian Constantin-François Volney, one of the earliest myth
theorists

The beginnings of the formal denial of the existence of
JesusJesus can be
traced to late 18th-century France with the works of Constantin
François Chassebœuf de Volney and Charles-François
Dupuis.[173][174] Volney and Dupuis argued that
ChristianityChristianity was an
amalgamation of various ancient mythologies and that
JesusJesus was a
totally mythical character.[173][175]
Dupuis argued that ancient rituals in Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia,
Persia, and India had influenced the Christian story which was
allegorized as the histories of solar deities, such as Sol
Invictus.[176] Dupuis also said that the resurrection of
JesusJesus was an
allegory for the growth of the sun's strength in the sign of Aries at
the spring equinox.[176]
Volney argued that
AbrahamAbraham and
SarahSarah were derived from
BrahmaBrahma and his
wife Saraswati, whereas
ChristChrist was related to Krishna.[177] Volney
made use of a draft version of Dupuis' work and at times differed from
him, e.g. in arguing that the gospel stories were not intentionally
created, but were compiled organically.[176][178]
Volney's perspective became associated with the ideas of the French
Revolution, which hindered the acceptance of these views in
England.[179] Despite this, his work gathered significant following
among British and American radical thinkers during the 19th
century.[179]

German Professor David Strauss

In 1835, German theologian David Friedrich Strauss published his
extremely controversial The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (Das
Leben Jesu). While not denying that
JesusJesus existed, he did argue that
the miracles in the
New TestamentNew Testament were mythical retellings of normal
events as supernatural happenings.[180][181][182] According to
Strauss, the early church developed these miracle stories to present
JesusJesus as a fulfillment of Jewish prophecies of what the
MessiahMessiah would
be like. This rationalist perspective was in direct opposition to the
supernaturalist view that the bible was accurate both historically and
spiritually.
The book caused an uproar across Europe, as Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th
Earl of Shaftesbury called it "the most pestilential book ever vomited
out of the jaws of hell"[183] and Strauss' appointment as chair of
theology at the
University of ZürichUniversity of Zürich caused such controversy that the
authorities offered him a pension before he had a chance to start his
duties.[184]

German Professor Bruno Bauer

German Bruno Bauer, who taught at the University of Bonn, took
Strauss' arguments further and became the first author to
systematically argue that
JesusJesus did not exist.[185][186]
Beginning in 1841 with his Criticism of the
GospelGospel History of the
Synoptics, Bauer argued that
JesusJesus was primarily a literary figure,
but left open the question of whether a historical
JesusJesus existed at
all. Then in his Criticism of the Pauline Epistles (1850–1852) and
in A Critique of the
GospelsGospels and a History of their Origin
(1850–1851), Bauer argued that
JesusJesus had not existed.[5][187]
Bauer's work was heavily criticized at the time, as in 1839 he was
removed from his position at the
University of BonnUniversity of Bonn and his work did
not have much impact on future myth theorists.[185][188]
In his two-volume, 867-page book
AnacalypsisAnacalypsis (1836), English gentleman
Godfrey HigginsGodfrey Higgins said that "the mythos of the Hindus, the mythos of the
JewsJews and the mythos of the Greeks are all at bottom the same; and are
contrivances under the appearance of histories to perpetuate
doctrines"[189] and that Christian editors “either from roguery or
folly, corrupted them all”.[190] In his 1875 book The World's
Sixteen Crucified Saviors, American
Kersey GravesKersey Graves said that many
demigods from different countries shared similar stories, traits or
quotes as
JesusJesus and he used Higgins as the main source for his
arguments. The validity of the claims in the book have been greatly
criticized by
ChristChrist myth proponents like
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier and largely
dismissed by biblical scholars.[191]
Starting in the 1870s, English poet and author
Gerald MasseyGerald Massey became
interested in Egyptology and reportedly taught himself Egyptian
hieroglyphics at the British Museum.[192] In 1883, Massey published
The Natural Genesis where he asserted parallels between
JesusJesus and the
Egyptian god Horus. His other major work, Ancient Egypt: The Light of
the World, was published shortly before his death in 1907. His
assertions have influenced various later writers such as Alvin Boyd
Kuhn and Tom Harpur.[193] Despite criticisms from Stanley Porter and
Ward Gasque, Massey's theories regarding Egyptian etymologies for
certain scriptures are supported by noted contemporary
Egyptologists.[194]
In the 1870s and 1880s, a group of scholars associated with the
University of Amsterdam, known in German scholarship as the Radical
Dutch school, rejected the authenticity of the
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles and
took a generally negative view of the Bible's historical value.[195]
AbrahamAbraham Dirk Loman argued in 1881 that all
New TestamentNew Testament writings
belonged to the 2nd century and doubted that
JesusJesus was a historical
figure, but later said the core of the gospels was genuine.[196]
Additional early
ChristChrist myth proponents included Swiss skeptic Rudolf
Steck,[197] English historian Edwin Johnson,[198] English radical
Reverend Robert Taylor and his associate Richard Carlile.[199][200]
Early-20th-century proponents[edit]
During the early 20th century, several writers published arguments
against Jesus' historicity, often drawing on the work of liberal
theologians, who tended to deny any value to sources for
JesusJesus outside
the
New TestamentNew Testament and limited their attention to Mark and the
hypothetical Q source.[196] They also made use of the growing field of
religious history which found sources for Christian ideas in Greek and
Oriental mystery cults, rather than Judaism.[201] Joseph Klausner
wrote that biblical scholars "tried their hardest to find in the
historic
JesusJesus something which is not Judaism; but in his actual
history they have found nothing of this whatever, since this history
is reduced almost to zero. It is therefore no wonder that at the
beginning of this century there has been a revival of the eighteenth
and nineteenth century view that
JesusJesus never existed".[202]
The work of social anthropologist
Sir James George FrazerSir James George Frazer has had an
influence on various myth theorists, although Frazer himself believed
that
JesusJesus existed.[203] In 1890, Frazer published the first edition
of The Golden Boughs which attempted to define the shared elements of
religious belief. This work became the basis of many later authors who
argued that the story of
JesusJesus was a fiction created by Christians.
After a number of people claimed that he was a myth theorist, in the
1913 expanded edition of The Golden Bough he expressly stated that his
theory assumed a historical Jesus.[204]
In 1900, Scottish Member of Parliament John Mackinnon Robertson argued
that
JesusJesus never existed, but was an invention by a first-century
messianic cult.[205][206] In Robertson's view, religious groups invent
new gods to fit the needs of the society of the time.[205] Robertson
argued that a solar deity symbolized by the lamb and the ram had long
been worshiped by an Israelite cult of
JoshuaJoshua and that this cult had
then invented a new messianic figure,
JesusJesus of
Nazareth.[205][207][208] Robertson argued that a possible source for
the Christian myth may have been the Talmudic story of the executed
JesusJesus Pandera which dates to 100 BC.[205][209] Robertson considered
the letters of Paul the earliest surviving Christian writings, but
viewed them as primarily concerned with theology and morality, rather
than historical details. Robertson viewed references to the twelve
apostles and the institution of the
EucharistEucharist as stories that must
have developed later among gentile believers who were converted by
Jewish evangelists like Paul.[205][210][211]
The English school master George Robert Stowe Mead argued in 1903 that
JesusJesus had existed, but that he had lived in 100 BC.[212][213] Mead
based his argument on the Talmud, which pointed to
JesusJesus being
crucified c. 100 BC. In Mead's view, this would mean that the
Christian gospels are mythical.[214]
Tom HarpurTom Harpur has compared Mead's
impact on myth theory to that of
Bruno BauerBruno Bauer and Arthur Drews.[215]
In 1909, school teacher John Eleazer Remsburg published The Christ,
which made a distinction between a possible historical
JesusJesus (
JesusJesus of
Nazareth) and the
JesusJesus of the
GospelsGospels (
JesusJesus of Bethlehem). Remsburg
thought that there was good reason to believe that the historical
JesusJesus existed, but that the "
ChristChrist of Christianity" was a
mythological creation.[216] Remsburg compiled a list of 42 names of
"writers who lived and wrote during the time, or within a century
after the time" who Remsburg felt should have written about
JesusJesus if
the
GospelsGospels account was reasonably accurate, but who did
not.[217][218][219]

German Professor Arthur Drews

Also in 1909, German philosophy Professor Christian Heinrich Arthur
Drews wrote The
ChristChrist Myth to argue that
ChristianityChristianity had been a
Jewish
GnosticGnostic cult that spread by appropriating aspects of Greek
philosophy and life-death-rebirth deities.[220] In his later books The
Witnesses to the
Historicity of JesusHistoricity of Jesus (1912) and The Denial of the
Historicity of JesusHistoricity of Jesus in Past and Present (1926), Drews reviewed the
biblical scholarship of his time as well as the work of other myth
theorists, attempting to show that everything reported about the
historical
JesusJesus had a mythical character.[221] Drews met with
criticism from
Nikolai BerdyaevNikolai Berdyaev who claimed that Drews was an
anti-Semite who argued against the historical existence of
JesusJesus for
the sake of Aryanism.[222] Drews took part in a series of public
debates with theologians and historians who opposed his
arguments.[223][224]
Drews' work found fertile soil in the Soviet Union, where
Marxist–Leninist atheismMarxist–Leninist atheism was the official doctrine of the state.
Soviet leader
LeninLenin argued that it was imperative in the struggle
against religious obscurantists to form a union with people like
Drews.[225] Several editions of Drews' The
ChristChrist Myth were published
in the
Soviet UnionSoviet Union from the early 1920s onwards and his arguments
were included in school and university textbooks.[226] Public meetings
asking "Did
ChristChrist live?" were organized, during which party
operatives debated with clergymen.[227]
In 1927, British philosopher
Bertrand RussellBertrand Russell stated in his lecture
Why I Am Not a Christian that "historically it is quite doubtful that
JesusJesus existed, and if he did we do not know anything about him, so
that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very
difficult one", though Russell did nothing to further develop the
idea.[228]
Church of ScientologyChurch of Scientology founder
L. Ron HubbardL. Ron Hubbard was convinced that Jesus
never existed, stating that
ChristianityChristianity evolved from the "R6
Implant": "The man on the cross. There was no Christ! The Roman
Catholic Church, through watching the dramatizations of people picked
up some little fragments of R6".[229]
Modern proponents[edit]
Paul-Louis Couchoud[edit]
The French philosopher Paul-Louis Couchoud,[230] published in the
1920s and 1930s, but was a predecessor for contemporary
mythicists.[231] According to Couchoud,
ChristianityChristianity started not with
a biography of
JesusJesus but "a collective mystical experience, sustaining
a divine history mystically revealed."[quote 5] Couchaud's
JesusJesus is
not a "myth", but a "religious conception".[232]
Robert Price mentions Couchoud's comment on the
ChristChrist Hymn, one of
the relics of the
ChristChrist cults to which Paul converted. Couchoud noted
that in this hymn the name
JesusJesus was given to the
ChristChrist after his
torturous death, implying that there cannot have been a ministry by a
teacher called Jesus.[21]
George Albert Wells[edit]
George Albert Wells (1926–2017), a professor of German, revived the
interest in the
ChristChrist myth theory. In his early work,[233] including
Did
JesusJesus Exist? (1975), Wells argued that because the
GospelsGospels were
written decades after Jesus's death by Christians who were
theologically motivated but had no personal knowledge of him, a
rational person should believe the gospels only if they are
independently confirmed.[234] Atheist philosopher and scholar Michael
Martin supported his thesis, claiming: "
JesusJesus is not placed in a
historical context and the biographical details of his life are left
unsuspecte [...] a strong prima facie case challenging the historicity
of
JesusJesus can be constructed".[235] Martin adds in his book The Case
Against
ChristianityChristianity that "Well's argument against the historicity [of
Jesus] is sound".[236]
Later, Wells concluded that a historical
JesusJesus figure did exist and
was a Galilean preacher, whose teachings were preserved in the Q
document, a hypothetical common source for the gospels of Matthew and
Luke.[237][238] However, he continued to insist that Biblical Jesus
did not exist and argued that stories such as the virgin birth, the
crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate and the resurrection should be
regarded as legendary.[239][240][241] Biblical scholar Robert E. Van
Voorst said that with this argument Wells had performed an
about-face.[2] However, other scholars continue to note Wells as a
mythicist.[242][quote 12]
In his 2009 book Cutting
JesusJesus Down to Size,[243] Wells clarified that
he believes the
GospelsGospels represent the fusion of two originally
independent streams: a Galilean preaching tradition and the
supernatural personage of Paul's early epistles, but he says that both
figures owe much of their substance to ideas from the Jewish wisdom
literature.[quote 41]
According to Graham Stanton, writing in 2002, Wells advanced the most
sophisticated version of the
ChristChrist myth theory, noting that "[t]his
intriguing theory rests on several pillars, each of which is
shaky."[244] According to Maurice Casey, Wells' work repeated the main
points of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, which are deemed
outdated by mainstream scholarship. His works were not discussed by
New TestamentNew Testament scholars, because it was "not considered to be original,
and all his main points were thought to have been refuted long time
ago, for reasons which were very well known."[1]
Earl Doherty[edit]
Canadian writer
Earl Doherty (born 1941) was introduced to the Christ
myth theme by a lecture by Wells in the 1970s.[27][note 21] Doherty
follows the lead of Wells, but disagrees on the historicity of Jesus,
arguing that "everything in Paul points to a belief in an entirely
divine Son who "lived" and acted in the spiritual realm, in the same
mythical setting in which all the other savior deities of the day were
seen to operate".[27] According to Doherty, Paul's
ChristChrist originated
as a myth derived from middle
PlatonismPlatonism with some influence from
Jewish mysticism and belief in a historical
JesusJesus emerged only among
Christian communities in the 2nd century.[245] Paul and other writers
of the earliest existing proto-Christian documents did not believe in
JesusJesus as a person who was incarnated on Earth in a historical setting,
rather they believed in
JesusJesus as a heavenly being who suffered his
sacrificial death in the lower spheres of heaven, where he was
crucified by demons and then was subsequently resurrected by God. This
mythological
JesusJesus was not based on a historical Jesus, but rather on
an exegesis of the
Old TestamentOld Testament in the context of Jewish-Hellenistic
religious syncretism and what the early authors believed to be
mystical visions of a risen Jesus.[97]
According to Doherty, the nucleus of the historical
JesusJesus of the
GospelsGospels can be found in the Jesus-movement which wrote the Q
source.[28] According to Doherty, the Q-authors may have regarded
themselves as "spokespersons for the Wisdom of God", with
JesusJesus being
the embodiment of this Wisdom,[28][96] who was added in the latest
phase of the development of Q.[28] Q then started to take the form of
a "foundation document", in response to a concurring sect who saw John
the
BaptistBaptist as its founder.[28] Eventually, Q's
JesusJesus and Paul's
ChristChrist were combined in the
GospelGospel of Mark by a predominantly gentile
community.[28] In time, the gospel-narrative of this embodiment of
Wisdom became interpreted as the literal history of the life of
Jesus.[96]
Robert M. Price[edit]

There is no mention of a miracle-working
JesusJesus in secular sources.
The epistles, written earlier than the gospels, provide no evidence of
a recent historical
JesusJesus and all that can be taken from the epistles,
Price argues, is that a
JesusJesus Christ, son of God, lived in a heavenly
realm, there died as a sacrifice for human sin, was raised by God and
enthroned in heaven.
The
JesusJesus narrative is paralleled in Middle Eastern myths about dying
and rising gods. Price names Baal, Osiris, Attis,
AdonisAdonis and
Dumuzi/Tammuz as examples, all of which, he writes, survived into the
Hellenistic and Roman periods and thereby influenced early
Christianity. Price alleges that Christian apologists have tried to
minimize these parallels.[62][249]

Price questioned the historicity of
JesusJesus in a series of books,
including Deconstructing
JesusJesus (2000), The Incredible Shrinking Son of
Man (2003),
JesusJesus Is Dead (2007) and The Christ-Myth Theory and Its
Problems (2012), as well as in contributions to The Historical Jesus:
Five Views (2009), in which he acknowledges that he stands against the
majority view of scholars, but cautions against attempting to settle
the issue by appeal to the majority.[250]
In Deconstructing Jesus, Price points out that "the
JesusJesusChristChrist of
the
New TestamentNew Testament is a composite figure", out of which a broad variety
of historical Jesuses can be reconstructed, any one of which may have
been the real Jesus, but not all of them together.[251] According to
Price, various
JesusJesus images flowed together at the origin of
Christianity, some of them possibly based on myth, some of them
possibly based on "a historical
JesusJesus the Nazorean".[252] Price admits
uncertainty in this regard, writing in conclusion: "There may have
been a real figure there, but there is simply no longer any way of
being sure".[253]
Citing accounts that have
JesusJesus being crucified under Alexander
Jannaeus (83 BC) or in his 50s by
Herod Agrippa IHerod Agrippa I under the rule of
ClaudiusClaudius Caesar (AD 41–54). Price argues that these "varying dates
are the residue of various attempts to anchor an originally mythic or
legendary
JesusJesus in more or less recent history".[254]
Thomas L. Thompson[edit]
Thomas L. Thompson (born 1939), Professor emeritus of theology at the
University of Copenhagen, is a leading biblical minimalist of the Old
Testament.[255] In his 2007 book The
MessiahMessiah Myth: The Near Eastern
Roots of
JesusJesus and David,[256] Thompson argues that the biblical
accounts of both King David and
JesusJesus of
NazarethNazareth are mythical in
nature and based on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek and
Roman literature. For example, he argues that the resurrection of
JesusJesus is taken directly from the story of the dying and rising god,
Dionysus.[quote 60][257] However, Thompson does not draw a final
conclusion on the historicity or ahistoricity of Jesus, but argued
that any historical person would be very different from the
ChristChrist (or
Messiah) identified in the
GospelGospel of Mark.[34]
Thompson coedited the contributions from a diverse range of scholars
in the 2012 book Is This Not the Carpenter?: The Question of the
Historicity of the Figure of Jesus.[24][258] Writing in the
introduction, "The essays collected in this volume have a modest
purpose. Neither establishing the historicity of a historical Jesus
nor possessing an adequate warrant for dismissing it, our purpose is
to clarify our engagement with critical historical and exegetical
methods."[259]
In a 2012 online article, Thompson defended his qualifications to
address
New TestamentNew Testament issues and he rejected the label of "mythicist"
and reiterated his position that the issue of Jesus' existence cannot
be determined one way or the other.[20]
Thomas L. Brodie[edit]
In 2012, the Irish Dominican priest and theologian Thomas L. Brodie
(born 1943), holding a PhD from the Pontifical University of St.
Thomas Aquinas in
RomeRome and a co-founder and former director of the
Dominican Biblical Institute in Limerick, published Beyond the Quest
for the Historical Jesus: Memoir of a Discovery. In this book, Brodie,
who previously had published academic works on the Hebrew prophets,
argued that the
GospelsGospels are essentially a rewriting of the stories of
ElijahElijah and
ElishaElisha when viewed as a unified account in the Books of
Kings. This view lead Brodie to the conclusion that
JesusJesus is
mythical.[260] Brodie's argument builds on his previous work, in which
he stated that rather than being separate and fragmented, the stories
of
ElijahElijah and
ElishaElisha are united and that 1 Kings 16:29–2 Kings 13:25
is a natural extension of 1 Kings 17–2 Kings 8 which have a
coherence not generally observed by other biblical scholars.[261]
Brodie then views the Elijah–
ElishaElisha story as the underlying model
for the gospel narratives.[261]
In response to Brodie's publication of his view that
JesusJesus was
mythical, the Dominican order banned him from writing and lecturing,
although he was allowed to stay on as a brother of the Irish Province,
which continued to care for him.[262] "There is an unjustifiable jump
between methodology and conclusion" in Brodie's book—according to
Gerard Norton—and "are not soundly based on scholarship". According
to Norton, they are "a memoir of a series of significant moments or
events" in Brodie's life that reinforced "his core conviction" that
neither
JesusJesus nor Paul of Tarsus were historical.[263]
Richard Carrier[edit]

Richard Carrier

American independent scholar [264]
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier (born 1969)
reviewed Doherty's work on the origination of Jesus[265] and
eventually concluded that the evidence actually favored the core
Doherty thesis.[quote 32] According to Carrier, many studies by
mainstream scholars have shown that the current consensus of a
historical
JesusJesus is based on invalid methods.[266][note 22]
Carrier argues in his book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might
Have Reason for Doubt that there is insufficient Bayesian probability,
that is evidence, to believe in the existence of Jesus. Furthermore,
Carrier argues that the
JesusJesus figure was probably originally known
only through private revelations and hidden messages in scripture
which were then crafted into a historical figure to communicate the
claims of the gospels allegorically. These allegories then started to
be believed as fact during the struggle for control of the Christian
churches of the first century. He argues that the probability of
Jesus' existence is somewhere in the range from 1/3 to 1/12000
depending on the estimates used for the computation.[267]
His methodology was reviewed by Aviezer Tucker, a prior advocate of
using Bayesian techniques in history. Tucker expressed some sympathy
for Carrier's view of the Gospels, stating: "The problem with the
Synoptic
GospelsGospels as evidence for a historical
JesusJesus from a Bayesian
perspective is that the evidence that coheres does not seem to be
independent, whereas the evidence that is independent does not seem to
cohere". However, Tucker argued that historians have been able to use
theories about the transmission and preservation of information to
identify reliable parts of the Gospels. He said that "Carrier is too
dismissive of such methods because he is focused on hypotheses about
the historical
JesusJesus rather than on the best explanations of the
evidence".[268]
Other modern proponents[edit]

British academic John M. Allegro

In his books
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979), the British archaeologist and
philologist
John M. AllegroJohn M. Allegro advanced the theory that stories of early
ChristianityChristianity originated in a shamanistic
EsseneEssene clandestine cult
centered around the use of hallucinogenic
mushrooms.[269][270][271][272] He also argued that the story of Jesus
was based on the crucifixion of the
Teacher of Righteousness in the
Dead Sea Scrolls.[273][274] Allegro's theory was criticised sharply by
Welsh historian Philip Jenkins, who wrote that Allegro relied on texts
that did not exist in quite the form he was citing them.[275] Based on
this and many other negative reactions to the book, Allegro's
publisher later apologized for issuing the book and Allegro was forced
to resign his academic post.[271][276]
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, in their 1999 publication The Jesus
Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? propose that Jesus
did not literally exist as an historically identifiable individual,
but was instead a syncretic re-interpretation of the fundamental pagan
"godman" by the Gnostics, who were the original sect of Christianity.
The book has been negatively received by scholars, and also by Christ
mythicists.[277][278][279][280]

Influenced by Massey and Higgins,
Alvin Boyd KuhnAlvin Boyd Kuhn (1880–1963) argued
an Egyptian etymology to the Bible that the gospels were symbolic
rather than historic and that church leaders started to misinterpret
the
New TestamentNew Testament in the third century.[281] Author and ordained
priest
Tom HarpurTom Harpur dedicated his 2004 book The Pagan
ChristChrist to Kuhn,
suggesting that Kuhn has not received the attention he deserves since
many of his works were self-published.[282] Building on Kuhn's work,
Harpur listed similarities among the stories of Jesus, Horus, Mithras,
Buddha and others. According to Harpur, in the second or third
centuries the early church created the fictional impression of a
literal and historic
JesusJesus and then used forgery and violence to cover
up the evidence.[283] Harpur's book received a great deal of
criticism, including a response book, Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An
Evangelical Response to the Cosmic
ChristChrist Idea.[284] Fellow mythicist
Robert M. PriceRobert M. Price also wrote a negative review, saying that he did not
agree that the Egyptian parallels were as forceful as Harpur
thought.[285] In 2007, Harpur published a sequel, Water Into
Wine.[286]
David Fitzgerald has self-published several works in defense of the
ChristChrist myth theory, including Nailed: 10 Christian Myths That Show
JesusJesus Never Existed At All (2010), and Jesus: Mything in Action, Vols.
I–III (2017).
In his 2017 book Décadence, French writer and philosopher Michel
Onfray argued for the
ChristChrist myth theory and based his hypothesis on
the fact that—other than in the New Testament—
JesusJesus is barely
mentioned in accounts of the period.[287]
The
ChristChrist myth theory enjoyed brief popularity in the Soviet Union,
where it was supported by Sergey Kovalev, Alexander Kazhdan, Abram
Ranovich, Nikolai Rumyantsev and Robert Vipper.[288] However, several
scholars, including Kazhdan, later retracted their views about
mythical
JesusJesus and by the end of the 1980s
Iosif Kryvelev remained as
virtually the only proponent of
ChristChrist myth theory in Soviet
academia.[289]
Reception[edit]
Popular reception[edit]
A 2015 survey by the Church of
EnglandEngland suggests that 22 percent of
people in
EnglandEngland do not believe
JesusJesus was a real person,[web 1] while
according to Alexander Lucie-Smith, "40 per cent of British people,
according to a recent poll, do not believe that
JesusJesus was 'a real
person'."[290]
Ehrman notes that "the mythicists have become loud, and thanks to the
Internet they've attracted more attention".[web 2] Within a few years
of the inception of the World Wide Web (c. 1990), mythicists such as
Earl Doherty began to present their argument to a larger public via
the internet.[quote 61] Doherty created the website The
JesusJesus Puzzle
in 1996,[web 3] while the organization
Internet Infidels has featured
the works of mythicists on their website[web 4] and mythicism has been
mentioned on several popular news sites.[quote 62]
According to Derek Murphy, the documentaries The God Who Wasn't There
(2005) and
Zeitgeist (2007) raised interest for the
ChristChrist myth theory
with a larger audience and gave the topic a large coverage on the
Internet.[291] Daniel Gullotta notes the relationship between the
organization "Atheists United" and Carrier's work related to
Mythicism, which has increased "the attention of the public".[quote
63]
According to Ehrman, mythicism has a growing appeal "because these
deniers of
JesusJesus are at the same time denouncers of religion".[web
5][quote 64] According to Casey, mythicism has a growing appeal
because of an aversion toward
Christian fundamentalismChristian fundamentalism among American
atheists.[1]
Scholarly reception[edit]
In modern scholarship, the
ChristChrist myth theory is a fringe theory and
finds virtually no support from scholars.[292][293][294][quote 65]
Lack of support for mythicism[edit]
According to
New TestamentNew Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, most people who
study the historical period of
JesusJesus believe that he did exist and do
not write in support of the
ChristChrist myth theory.[295]
Maurice Casey, theologian and scholar of
New TestamentNew Testament and early
Christianity, stated that the belief among professors that Jesus
existed is generally completely certain. According to Casey, the view
that
JesusJesus did not exist is "the view of extremists", "demonstrably
false" and "professional scholars generally regard it as having been
settled in serious scholarship long ago".[296]
In his 1977 book Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels,
classical historian and popular author Michael Grant concluded that
"modern critical methods fail to support the Christ-myth theory".[297]
In support of this, Grant quoted Roderic Dunkerley's 1957 opinion that
the
ChristChrist myth theory has "again and again been answered and
annihilated by first-rank scholars".[298] At the same time, he also
quoted Otto Betz's 1968 opinion that in recent years "no serious
scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of Jesus—or at
any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the
much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary".[299]
In the same book, he also wrote: quoteIf we apply to the New
Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply
to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no
more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a
mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never
questioned.[300]
Graeme Clarke,
Emeritus Professor of Classical Ancient History and
Archaeology at Australian National University[301] has stated:
"Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who
would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus
Christ—the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming".[302]
R. Joseph Hoffmann, who had created the
JesusJesus Project, which included
both mythicists and historicists to investigate the historicity of
Jesus, wrote that an adherent to the
ChristChrist myth theory asked to set
up a separate section of the project for those committed to the
theory. Hoffmann felt that to be committed to mythicism signaled a
lack of necessary skepticism and he noted that most members of the
project did not reach the mythicist conclusion.[303]
Questioning the competence of proponents[edit]
Critics of the
ChristChrist myth theory question the competence of its
supporters.[255] According to Ehrman:

Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient
history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in
the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want
to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher
who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine.[304]

In a response, Thompson questioned the polemical nature of this
qualification, pointing at his own academic standing and
expertise.[20] According to Thompson, Ehrman "has attributed to my
book arguments and principles which I had never presented, certainly
not that
JesusJesus had never existed".[20] Thompson questions Ehrman's
qualifications in regard to Old Testamentical writings and research,
as well as his competence to recognize the problems involved in
"reiterated narrative" and "the historicity of a literary figure",
stating that Ehrman had "thoroughly [...] misunderstood [...] the very
issue of the historicity of the
New TestamentNew Testament figure of Jesus".[20]
Maurice Casey has criticized the mythicists, pointing out their
complete ignorance of how modern critical scholarship actually
works.[305] He also criticizes mythicists for their frequent
assumption that all modern scholars of religion are Protestant
fundamentalists of the American variety, insisting that this
assumption is not only totally inaccurate,[305] but also exemplary of
the mythicists' misconceptions about the ideas and attitudes of
mainstream scholars.[305]
Questioning the mainstream view appears to have consequences for one's
job perspectives.[note 23] According to Casey, Thompson's early work,
which "successfully refuted the attempts of Albright and others to
defend the historicity of the most ancient parts of biblical
literature history", has "negatively affected his future job
prospects".[255] Ehrman also notes that mythicist views would prevent
one from getting employment in a religious studies department:

These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the
real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching
job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist
is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology.[304]

Opponents[edit]
Few scholars have bothered to criticise
ChristChrist myth theories,
regarding them to be too outlandish to be worthy of serious criticism.
A notable exceptions are
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman and Maurice Casey.
Bart Ehrman[edit]
Main article: Did
JesusJesus Exist? (Ehrman)
In this book,
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman surveys the arguments "mythicists" have made
against the existence of
JesusJesus since the idea was first mooted at the
end of the 18th century. To the objection that there are no
contemporary Roman records of Jesus' existence, Ehrman points out that
such records exist for almost no one and there are mentions of Christ
in several Roman works of history from only decades after the death of
Jesus.[306][307] The author states that the authentic letters of the
apostle Paul in the
New TestamentNew Testament were likely written within a few
years of Jesus' death and that Paul likely personally knew James, the
brother of Jesus.[308] Although the gospel accounts of Jesus' life may
be biased and unreliable in many respects, Ehrman writes, they and the
sources behind them which scholars have discerned still contain some
accurate historical information.[306][307] So many independent
attestations of Jesus' existence, Ehrman says, are actually
"astounding for an ancient figure of any kind".[308] Ehrman dismisses
the idea that the story of
JesusJesus is an invention based on pagan myths
of dying-and-rising gods, maintaining that the early Christians were
primarily influenced by Jewish ideas, not Greek or Roman
ones,[306][308] and repeatedly insisting that the idea that there was
never such a person as
JesusJesus is not seriously considered by historians
or experts in the field at all.[306]
Maurice Casey[edit]
In Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist Myths? (2014), scholar of
New TestamentNew Testament and early
ChristianityChristianityMaurice Casey treats the
historical method, the reliability of the Gospels, the argument from
silence from both the
GospelsGospels and the Pauline epistles, and the
similarities with other religions of the time.[1] According to Casey,
many mythicists seem to object against fundamentalist perceptions of
Christianity, while ignoring or ignorant of liberal forms of
Christianity.[1]
Traditional and Evangelical Christianity[edit]
Alexander Lucie-Smith, Catholic priest and doctor of moral theology,
states that "People who think
JesusJesus didn’t exist are seriously
confused," but also notes that "the Church needs to reflect on its
failure. If 40 per cent believe in the
JesusJesus myth, this is a sign that
the Church has failed to communicate with the general public."[290]
Stanley E. Porter, president and dean of
McMaster Divinity CollegeMcMaster Divinity College in
Hamilton, and Stephen J. Bedard, a
BaptistBaptist minister and graduate of
McMaster Divinity, respond to Harpur's ideas from an evangelical
standpoint in Unmasking the Pagan Christ: An Evangelical Response to
the Cosmic
ChristChrist Idea, challenging the key ideas lying at the
foundation of Harpur's thesis. Porter and Bedard conclude that there
is sufficient evidence for the historicity of
JesusJesus and assert that
Harpur is motivated to promote "universalistic
spirituality".[309][note 24]
J.P. Holding gathered his online criticism of the
ChristChrist myth theory
in 2008 in Shattering the
ChristChrist Myth.[note 25]
Documentaries[edit]
Since 2005, several English-language documentaries have focused—at
least in part—on the
ChristChrist myth theory:

Bible conspiracy theory
Christian mythology
Christology
Criticism of the Bible
Criticism of Christianity
Criticism of Jesus
Gnosticism
Historical background of the New Testament
Historical reliability of the Gospels
Historicity of the Bible
JosephusJosephus on Jesus
List of
ChristChrist myth theory proponents
List of messiah claimants
Origins of Christianity
Quest for the historical Jesus
Sources for the historicity of Jesus
TacitusTacitus on Christ

James D. G. Dunn (2003): "[these] two facts [of baptism and
crucifixion] in the life of
JesusJesus command almost universal
assent."[317]
John Dominic Crossan: "That he was crucified is as sure as anything
historical can ever be, since both
JosephusJosephus and Tacitus...agree with
the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."[318]
According to Herzog,
JesusJesus was baptized by John the Baptist, preached
about the coming Kingdom of God, attracted numerous followers
including the twelve disciples, and was subsequently crucified by the
order of the Roman prefect Pontius Pilate, which eventually lead to
his immediate followers continuing his movement which soon became
known as Christianity.[319]
E. P. Sanders, in "
JesusJesus and Judaism" (1985), says there are eight
facts that can be discerned about the historical Jesus: his Baptism,
that he was a Galilean itinerant preacher who was reputed to do
healings and other 'miracles', he called disciples and spoke of there
being 12, that he confined his activity to Israel, that he engaged in
controversy over the Temple, that he was crucified outside of
JerusalemJerusalem by the Romans, that those disciples continued as a movement
after his death. In his 1993 work, "The Historical figure of Jesus" he
added six more: that
JesusJesus was likely born in 4-6 BC under Herod the
Great (the Gregorian calendar is wrong),
JesusJesus grew up in Nazareth,
JesusJesus taught in small villages and towns and seemed to avoid cities,
JesusJesus ate a final meal with his disciples, he was arrested and
interrogated by Jewish authorities apparently at the instigation of
the high priest, his disciples abandoned him at his death, later
believed they saw him and thereafter believed
JesusJesus would return.

^
HeresyHeresy has been a concern in Christian communities at least since
the writing of the Second Epistle of Peter: "[E]ven as there shall be
false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable
heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them" (2 Peter 2:1–AV).
Traditionally, orthodoxy is deemed as the authentic lineage of
tradition, while other forms of
ChristianityChristianity were viewed as deviant
streams of thought and therefore "heterodox" or heretical.
^ Per the time period AD 26 to 36,
JerusalemJerusalem was part of Roman
Provincia Iudaea or "Greater Judea", which incorporated
SamariaSamaria and
IdumeaIdumea into an expanded territory. Traditionally spelled Iudaea to
distinguish it from the smaller region —Judea proper.
GalileeGalilee and
PereaPerea were not part of Provincia Iudaea at this time, but part of a
Herodian Tetrarchy. The traditional usage of the term Palestine
originated c. 311 with History of the Martyrs in Palestine by
Eusebius, which then was used by subsequent writers.
^ a b Per biblical studies, the major subdisciplines include
translation, textual criticism, historical criticism, literary
criticism, biblical theology, and biblical archaeology.[310]

Per biblical criticism, studies of the Old and New Testaments are
often independent of each other, largely due to the difficulty of any
single scholar having a sufficient grasp of the many languages
required or of the cultural background for the different periods in
which texts had their origins.

^ a b Protestant Christian fundamentalists regard biblical inerrancy
as fundamental of the Christian faith.[311] In keeping with
traditional Christian doctrines concerning biblical interpretation,
the role
JesusJesus plays in the Bible, and the role of the church in
society, fundamentalists usually believe in a core of Christian
beliefs that include the historical accuracy of the Bible and all its
events as well as the
Second ComingSecond Coming of
JesusJesus Christ.[312]

Many liberal Christians prefer to read Jesus' miracles as metaphorical
narratives for understanding the power of God.[313] Not all
theologians with liberal inclinations reject the possibility of
miracles, but many reject the polemicism that denial or affirmation
entails.[314] Therefore, liberal Christian theologians often reject
traditional Christian teaching on subjects such as the Virgin Birth,
the Resurrection, and the authority of Scripture.

Arnal, William E. (2015). The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship,
JudaismJudaism and the Construction of Contemporary Identity. Routledge.
pp. 75ff. ISBN 978-1-317-32440-9. Whether
JesusJesus himself
existed as a historical figure or not, the gospels that tell of him
are unquestionably mythic texts. ...Investigations into the historical
JesusJesus require, by contrast, that the gospels be used as historical
sources, and in fact the main difference between “conservative”
and “liberal” scholarship revolves around how much legendary
accretion is stripped away in order to arrive at the “historical
core,”...

^ a b A modern positive argument vis-à-vis the negative argument from
silence, is the argument to the best explanation. As per the argument
of Doherty and Carrier, derived from a sceptical analysis of the
Pauline epistles, which reveals peculiarities that they claim are
better understood in context with the supreme angel of Philo, already
extant in Jewish angelology (Confusion of Tongues 62f, 146f; On Dreams
1.215; etc.), whose theological attributes correspond to the
attributes of the Celestial
JesusJesus of Paul (Rom 8:29; 2 Cor 4:4; 1 Cor
8:6; Heb 2:17, 4:14, etc.) thus being the same angel of Philo. And
that furthermore, in early Christian belief this same angel deviates
from Philo's account, per Phil 2:5–11; 1 Cor 15 with an incarnation,
death, burial and resurrection taking place just below the moon (cf.
the same, per the death and resurrection of Osiris), which identifies
ChristianityChristianity as distinct from Judaism.[322]

Carrier (2014b): "
OsirisOsiris descends and becomes incarnate and is slain
not on earth, but in the lower heavens, and then rises from the dead
and reascends to power in the upper heavens [...] Adam was in some
accounts buried in the heavens (as in chapter 40 of the Greek text of
the Life of Adam and Eve), so possibly was
JesusJesus imagined to have
been. The incarnation, in a body of Davidic flesh, still would have
been imagined as necessary to fulfill scripture. But as depicted in
the Ascension of Isaiah, this would have happened in “the
sky.”"[316]
^ The central
ChristologyChristology of Paul conveys the notion of Christ's
pre-existence and the identification of
ChristChrist as Kyrios. The Pauline
epistles use
KyriosKyrios to identify
JesusJesus almost 230 times, and express
the theme that the true mark of a Christian is the confession of Jesus
as the true Lord. Paul viewed the superiority of the Christian
revelation over all other divine manifestations as a consequence of
the fact that
ChristChrist is the Son of God. The
Pauline epistlesPauline epistles also
advanced the "cosmic Christology" later developed in the fourth
gospel, elaborating the cosmic implications of Jesus' existence as the
Son of GodSon of God (see
ChristologyChristology §Apostolic Christology). Some scholars
see Paul's writings as an amplification and explanation of the
teachings of Jesus. Other scholars perceive that some teachings of
JesusJesus in Paul's writings are different from the teachings found in the
canonical gospels (see Pauline Christianity). In a similar fashion,
per Paul’s usage of the term Khristós, some scholars see this as an
example of
MessiahMessiah language in ancient
JudaismJudaism (Novenson, 2012), while
others contend that Paul’s usage of the term Khristós is
idiosyncratic (see
MessiahMessiah in Judaism).
^ a b Per the authorship of the fourteen books in the New Testament
traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, seven are generally
undisputed as authentic (see Authorship of the Pauline epistles):

^ a b
PhiloPhilo selected some of the philosophical tenets of the
Greco-Roman worldGreco-Roman world to fuse and harmonize with his exegesis of the
Septuagint. Especially the Stoic doctrine of God as the only
"efficient cause" (see Philo's view of God) as well as the general
ethics and use of allegories found in Stoicism. His exegesis of the
SeptuagintSeptuagint is based upon the assumption that it contains a literal
meaning for the un-initiated and an allegorical truth i.e. the "real"
meaning that only the initiated could comprehend.[323]
^ The concept of the "Mythic Hero" as an archetype was first developed
by Lord Raglan in 1936. It is a set of 22 common traits that he said
were shared by many heroes in various cultures, myths and religions
throughout history and around the world. Raglan argued that the higher
the score, the more likely the figure's biography is mythical. Raglan
did not categorically deny the historicity of the Heroes he looked at,
rather it was their common biographies he considered as nonhistorical
(see Rank-Raglan mythotype).
^ a b Per Bart Ehrman, in regards to the historical reality of
Christian tradition, most critical scholars assert that "there are
forty to sixty-five years separating Jesus’s death and our earliest
accounts of his life."[320] In this 40 to 65 year time period, Jesus
traditions (i.e. the practices, beliefs, and biographical details of
Jesus) were transmitted via word of mouth (see Oral gospel traditions)
or hypothetical written sources (see Q source) —by early Christian
tradents (see Sacred tradition).[321]
^ Per Anthropomorphism, Personification is the related attribution of
human form and characteristics to abstract concepts e.g. the
personification of wisdom and Greek personified concepts such as:
Arete—virtue, excellence, goodness, and valour; Techne—art and
skill; etc.
^ a b Many mythologies of the Greco-Roman era and region feature myths
of a god who dies and returns to life (see Dying-and-rising god).
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier gives the following as germane examples that were
extant prior to the origin of Christianity: Osiris, Adonis, Romulus,
Zalmoxis, Inanna. And notes that
MithrasMithras is not a dying-and-rising
god, but like those gods,
MithrasMithras is associated with a suffering or
struggle that results in a triumphant victory over death.[315]

Carrier (2014b): "
JesusJesus belongs to a fraternity of worshipped demigods
peculiar to the Greco-Roman era and region. All were “savior gods”
(literally so called). They were all the “son” of God
(occasionally his “daughter”). They all undergo a “passion”
(literally the same word in the Greek, patheôn), which was some
suffering or struggle (sometimes even resulting in death), through
which they all obtain victory over death, which they share in some
fashion with their followers. They all had stories about them set in
human history on earth. Yet none of them ever actually existed."[316]
^ Comparisons:

Preaching
ChristChrist from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical
Method, by Sidney Greidanus, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999.
The
Old TestamentOld Testament and the Significance of Jesus: Embracing Change –
maintaining Christian Identity : the Emerging Center in Biblical
Scholarship, by Fredrick Carlson Holmgren, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing,
1999.
The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering
ChristChrist in the Old Testament, by
Edmund P. Clowney, Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Company,
1991.
Four Portraits of Jesus: Studies in the
GospelsGospels and Their Old
Testament Background, by Elizabeth E. Platt, Paulist Press, 2004
The Great Argument, Or,
JesusJesusChristChrist in the Old Testament; by William
H. Thomson, Harper and Brothers, 1884.

– all en passim.
^ One reason why
ChristChrist mythicists suspect forgery is because the
passage previous to the Testimonium Flavianum concerns Pontius Pilate
setting his soldiers loose to massacre a large crowd of
JewsJews in
JerusalemJerusalem and—without the Testimonium Flavianum—the following
paragraph starts by saying: "About the same time also another sad
calamity put the
JewsJews into disorder". They deem this suspicious as
JosephusJosephus supposedly just wrote about
JesusJesus being "the Christ" and the
rise of "the tribe of Christians", seeing this as not fitting in the
context.

Other reasons include the passage not being something a devout Jew
such as
JosephusJosephus would write (especially, "if it be lawful to call him
a man" and "doer of incredible deeds"), as his writing was usually
sophisticated and would have explained anything out of the ordinary to
his Gentile audience, such as explaining what the word "Christ" means,
why
JesusJesus was called that and further explanations such as how he won
over many
JewsJews and Greeks, as he did for every other group (see book
18, chapter 1), or why he would mention
JesusJesus "appearing" in the
"third day"—a Christian creed—without explaining it[118] and how
no one seemed to notice this passage until the 4th century, not even
OrigenOrigen who quotes
JosephusJosephus extensively in his works,[119] thus leading
mythicists to think that the Testimonium Flavianum is a forgery of the
4th century, perhaps written by Eusebius[120] in order to provide an
outside Jewish authority for the life of Jesus.[121][122]
^
JosephusJosephus mentions several people named
JesusJesus (
JesusJesus son of Ananias,
JesusJesus son of Damneus,
JesusJesus son of Onias and
JesusJesus the brother of
John) as well as various prophets, being avidly against calling any of
them Messiahs, even describing them as "having evil or dishonorable
intentions" and sometimes calling them "charlatans" (the Egyptian, the
Samaritan,
Theudas and an unnamed "impostor"), but providing for each
more information and explanations than the
JesusJesus passage.
^ More specifically, from
JesusJesus son of Damneus, who is mentioned at
the end of book 20, chapter 9:1).[127]
^ The
JewsJews get angry at this, therefore complaints and demands are
made, the king removes Ananus from being high priest and
JesusJesus is then
made high priest.[128]
^ Some have even identified the historical and archetypal Jesuses[163]
or citing Carl Jung's statement "this
ChristChrist of St. Paul's would
hardly have been possible without the historical Jesus."[162]
^ In particular, the transformations faced by deities have distinct
differences from the resurrection of Jesus.
OsirisOsiris regains
consciousness as king of the underworld, rather than being
"transformed into an eschatological new creation" as Craig S. Keener
writes.[166] While
JesusJesus was born from a human woman (traditionally a
virgin) and accompanied by shepherds,
MitraMitra is born (unaccompanied by
shepherds) from the goddess
AditiAditi (to whom the word "virgin" is only
rarely, loosely, and indirectly applied in a highly poetic sense),
while
MithrasMithras (granted, accompanied by shepherds later) emerges
full-grown from a rock.[167] The rebirth of many of these deities was
a clear metaphor for the renewal of spring that repeated the death
every year, rather than a historic event meant to proclaim the god's
cancellation of death. Some of these parallels appear after
ChristianityChristianity (e.g. the earliest references to
AdonisAdonis rising from the
dead is in the second century AD,
AttisAttis a century later), and are
often only known through later Christian sources. Most other and later
parallels were made in the works of James George Frazer,[166] or may
be guilty of parallelomania[168] and even misrepresentation of
religious (both Christian and non-Christian) and linguistic
sources[166][169] (for example, ignoring the false cognate
relationship between
ChristChrist and Krishna).[169]
^ His subsequential study of the topic was published as The Jesus
Puzzle in a series of articles in the Humanist (1995–1996)[27] and
as a book (1999), and republished as Jesus: Neither God nor Man –
The Case for a Mythical
JesusJesus (2009).
^ For example:
* Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne (eds.), Jesus, History and the
Demise of Authenticity (New York: T. & T. Clark, 2012)
* Dale Allison, 'The Historians'
JesusJesus and the Church', in Seeking the
Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage (ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa and
Richard Hays; Grand Rapids, Ml: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), pp.
79–95
* Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies (Amherst. NY: Prometheus
Books, 2007), pp. 185–217
* Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus:
The Question of Criteria (Louisville. KY: John Knox Press, 2002)
* Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus
Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 2000
^ See Thomas Verenna, Goodbye for now?
^ See also Stephen J. Bedard,
JesusJesus Myth Theory, for an overview of
blogs by Bedard on the
JesusJesus Myth Theory.
^ See Tecton, http://www.tektonics.org/shattering.html
^ Stark:[324]

While others fled cities, Christians stayed in urban areas during
plague, ministering and caring for the sick.
Christian populations grew faster because of the prohibition of
abortion, birth control and infanticide. Since infanticide tended to
affect female newborn more frequently, early Christians had a more
even sex ratio and therefore a higher percentage of childbearing women
than pagans.
To the same effect, women were valued higher and allowed to
participate in worship leading to a high rate of female converts.
In a time of two epidemics (165 and 251) which killed up to a third of
the whole population of the
Roman EmpireRoman Empire each time, the Christian
message of redemption through sacrifice offered a more satisfactory
explanation of why bad things happen to innocent people. Further, the
tighter social cohesion and mutual help made them able to better cope
with the disasters, leaving them with less casualties than the general
population. This would also be attractive to outsiders, who would want
to convert. Lastly, the epidemics left many non-Christians with a
reduced number of interpersonal bonds, making the forming of new one
both necessary and easier.
Christians did not fight against their persecutors by open violence or
guerrilla warfare, but willingly went to their martyrdom while praying
for their captors, which added credibility to their evangelism.

Quotes[edit]
The named quotes after this sentence contain named references; to
prevent errors, they are stored here before the quotes-reflist. [quote
29]

^ Ehrman (2012), pp. 12, 347, n. 1: "[Per]
JesusJesus mythicism, Earl
Doherty, defines the view as follows: it is “the theory that no
historical
JesusJesus worthy of the name existed, that
ChristianityChristianity began
with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the
GospelsGospels are
essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable
person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition.” [Jesus:
Neither God nor Man: The Case for a mythical
JesusJesus (Ottawa, ON: Age of
Reason Publications, 2009), vii–viii.] In simpler terms, the
historical
JesusJesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing
to do with the founding of Christianity."
^ Dunn, James D. G. (29 July 2003). "
JesusJesus the Founder of
Christianity".
JesusJesus Remembered:
ChristianityChristianity in the Making. Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 174ff.
ISBN 978-0-8028-3931-2. : "If the starting assumption of a
fair degree of continuity between
JesusJesus and his native religion has a
priori persuasiveness, then it can hardly make less sense to assume a
fair degree of continuity between
JesusJesus and what followed. ...the
first followers of
JesusJesus were known as ‘Nazarenes’ (Acts 24.5),
which can be explained only by the fact that they saw themselves and
were seen as followers of ‘
JesusJesus the Nazarene’; and then as
‘Christians’ (Acts 11.26), which again must be because they were
known to be followers of the one they called the ‘Christ’.
Moreover,
JesusJesus is explicitly referred to once or twice in the early
tradition as the ‘foundation’ (themelion), which Paul laid
(including
JesusJesus tradition?), and on which the Corinthians were to
build their discipleship (1 Cor. 3.10–14); or as the ‘corner
stone’ (akrogōniaios) which began the building and established its
orientation (Eph. 2.20; 1 Pet. 2.6)."
^ Ehrman, Bart (28 September 2015). "Early Christian Docetism". The
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved 2 November 2017. From the surviving
documents of the period, there appear to have been five major
competing Christologies (= understandings of who
ChristChrist was)
throughout the Christian church [...] [Docetism] understood
ChristChrist to
be a fully divine being and therefore not human; Adoptionism
understood him to be a fully human being and not actually divine;
Separationism understood him to be two distinct beings, one human (the
man Jesus) and the other divine (the divine Christ); Modalism
understood him to be God the Father become flesh. The fifth view is
the one the “won out,” the Proto-orthodox view...
^ Gnosticism:

Pagels (1975): "Whoever knows contemporary
New TestamentNew Testament scholarship
knows Paul as the opponent of gnostic heresy. [...] Yet if this view
of Paul is accurate, the Pauline exegesis of second-century gnostics
is nothing less than astonishing.
GnosticGnostic writers not only fail to
grasp the whole point of Paul’s writings, but they dare to claim his
letters as a primary source of gnostic theology."
Pagels (1979), p. 196: "If we go back to the earliest known
sources of Christian tradition—the sayings of
JesusJesus (although
scholars disagree on the question of which sayings are genuinely
authentic), we can see how both gnostic and orthodox forms of
ChristianityChristianity could emerge as variant interpretations of the teaching
and significance of Christ."
Ehrman (2005), p. 125, 225 "[Most Gnostics claimed] that Christ
was a divine emissary from above, totally spirit, and that he entered
the man
JesusJesus temporarily [...] Gnostics were saying that Jesus
literally died "apart from God," in that the divine element within him
had left him."

^ a b Couchoud, Paul-Louis ap. Goguel (1926), p. 23,
§. Nonhistorical Theories: "At the origin of
ChristianityChristianity there
is, if I am right, not a personal biography, but a collective mystical
experience, sustaining a divine history mystically revealed." [First
published: Couchoud (1924), p. 339.]
^ a b Carrier (2014a), p. 52: "[T]he basic thesis of every
competent mythologist, then and now, has always been that
JesusJesus was
originally a god just like any other god (properly speaking, a demigod
in pagan terms; an archangel in Jewish terms; in either sense, a
deity), who was later historicized."
^ Doherty (2009), pp. vii–viii: "[The Mythical
JesusJesus viewpoint
holds] that
ChristianityChristianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical
figure..."
^ Mack (1988), p. 98: "Paul was converted to a Hellenized form of
some
JesusJesus movement that had already developed into a
ChristChrist cult.
[...] Thus his letters serve as documentation for the
ChristChrist cult as
well."

Price (2000), p. 75, §. The
ChristChrist Cults: "By choosing the
terminology “
ChristChrist cults,”
Burton Mack means to differentiate
those early movements that revered
JesusJesus as the
ChristChrist from those that
did not. [...] Mack is perhaps not quite clear about what would
constitute a
ChristChrist cult. Or at least he seems to me to obscure some
important distinctions between what would appear to be significantly
different subtypes of
ChristChrist movements."

^ Price (2000), pp. 88, 92, 94, n. 17, §. The
ChristChrist Cults:
"[Per] banquets held in honor of the gods, e.g., “Pray come dine
with me today at the table of the
KyriosKyrios Serapis.” It is no doubt
such social events [as these] which trouble Paul in 1 Cor. 8–11,
where he admits that indeed “there are gods aplenty and Kyrioi
aplenty” (1 Cor. 8:5), but seems to need to remind his Corinthian
Christians that “for us there is but one God, the Father, who
created all things, and one Kyrios, through whom all things were
made” (1 Cor. 8:6). [Wilhelm Bousset,
KyriosKyrios Christos: A History of
the Belief in
ChristChrist from the Beginnings of
ChristianityChristianity to Irenaeus,
trans. John E. Steely (New York: Abingdon Press, 1970), pp.
119–152.] [...] Richard Reitzenstein and Wilhelm Bousset were two
scholars who did manage to grasp the relevance of these ancient faiths
for the study of early Christianity. Their conclusion was a simple and
seemingly inevitable one: Once it reached Hellenistic soil, the story
of
JesusJesus attracted to itself a number of mythic motifs that were
common to the syncretic religious mood of the era."
^ Hellenistic Jews:

Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 93: "[Per the theory that hellenized
JewsJews developed the divinized Jesus] The most sophisticated and
influential version of the hellenization thesis was forged within the
German Religionsgeschichtliche Schule of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries—now often referred to as the “old history of
religions school.” Here, the crowning literary achievement in
several ways is Wilhelm Bousset’s 1913 work
KyriosKyrios Christos. Bousset
envisions two forms of pre-Pauline Christianity: [1. In the early
Palestinian community, and 2. In the Hellenistic communities.]"
Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 136: "
Burton Mack argues that Paul’s
view of
JesusJesus as a divine figure who gives his life for the salvation
of others had to originate in a Hellenistic rather than a Jewish
environment. Mack writes, "Such a notion [of vicarious human
suffering] cannot be traced to old Jewish and/ or Israelite
traditions, for the very notion of a vicarious human sacrifice was
anathema in these cultures. But it can be traced to a Strong Greek
tradition of extolling a noble death." More specifically, Mack argues
that a Greek "myth of martyrdom" and the "noble death" tradition are
ultimately responsible for influencing the hellenized
JewsJews of the
ChristChrist cults to develop a divinized Jesus."

^ Van Voorst (2003), p. 660: "[Per] The
JesusJesus Myth (1999), [G.
A.] Wells ...now accepts that there is some historical basis for the
existence of Jesus, derived from the lost early “gospel” “Q”
(the hypothetical source used by Matthew and Luke). Wells believes
that it is early and reliable enough to show that
JesusJesus probably did
exist, although this
JesusJesus was not the
ChristChrist that the later canonical
GospelsGospels portray."
^ a b Wells (2009), p. 327f: "[Eddy and Boyd (2007)] distinguish
(pp. 24f) three broad categories of judgment, other than their
own, concerning Jesus: 1. that “the
JesusJesus tradition is
virtually—perhaps entirely—fictional.” 2. that
JesusJesus did exist
[but with limited historical facts]... 3. that a core of historical
facts about the real historical
JesusJesus can be disclosed by research...
Eddy and Boyd are particularly concerned to refute the standpoint of
those in category 1 of these 3, and classify me as one of them [i.e.
category 1], as “the leading contemporary
ChristChrist myth theorist”
(p. 168n). In fact, however, I have expressly stated in my books of
1996, 1999, and 2004 that I have repudiated this theory, ...I have
never espoused this view, not even in my pre-1996
JesusJesus books, where I
did deny Jesus’s historicity. Although I have always allowed that
Paul believed in a
JesusJesus who, fundamentally supernatural, had
nevertheless been incarnated on Earth as a man."
^ Ehrman (2012), pp. 19, 348, n. 10: "Other writers who are often
placed in the mythicist camp present a slightly different view,
namely, that there was indeed a historical
JesusJesus but that he was not
the founder of Christianity, a religion rooted in the mythical
Christ-figure invented by its original adherents. This view was
represented in midcentury by Archibald Robinson, who thought that even
though there was a Jesus, “we know next to nothing about this
Jesus.” (A. Robertson, Jesus: Myth or History?, 107.) [Robertson,
Archibald. Jesus: Myth or History? London: Watts & Co., 1946.]"

Smith, p. 87: "The writing of biographies of
JesusJesus is of doubtful
critical value. Legend has coloured the historic data too much, and
outside corroborative testimony is too slender..."
Robertson (1946), p. 107: "We know next to nothing about this
Jesus. He is not the founder of anything that we can recognize as
Christianity. He is a mere postulate of historical criticism—a dead
leader of a lost cause, to whom sayings could be credited and round
whom a legend could be written."
McCabe (1948): "Many (including the present writer) are content to
infer broadly, from the scanty reliable evidence and the religious
developments of the first century, that probably some Jew named Jesus
adopted the Persian belief [see Avesta] in the end of the world and,
thinking that it was near, left his Essenian monastery [see Essenes]
to warn his fellows, and was put to death. They feel that the question
of historicity has little importance [...] the very scanty
biographical details even as given in the
GospelsGospels [see Mark] do not
justify the claim of a "unique personality,"...

^ Origins:

Price, Robert M. "The Quest of the Mythical Jesus".
JesusJesus Project.
Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. Archived from
the original on April 17, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017. There may
once have been an historical Jesus, but for us there is one no longer.
If he existed, he is forever lost behind the stained glass curtain of
holy myth. At least that's the current state of the evidence as I see
it. [The Quest of the Mythical
JesusJesus first appeared on the Robert M.
Price Myspace page.]
Price (2000), p. 85, §. The
ChristChrist Cults: "I am not trying
to say that there was a single origin of the Christian savior Jesus
Christ, and that origin is pure myth; rather, I am saying that there
may indeed have been such a myth, and that if so, it eventually flowed
together with other
JesusJesus images, some one of which may actually have
been based on a historical
JesusJesus the Nazorean."

"An actual man at some point named
JesusJesus acquired followers in life
who continued as an identifiable movement after his death."
"This is the same
JesusJesus who was claimed by some of his followers to
have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities."
"This is the same
JesusJesus some of whose followers soon began worshiping
as a living god (or demigod)."

^ Mythicists are critical of the conclusions and presuppositions of
mainstream scholarship:

Ellegård, Alvar (2008). "Theologians as historians". Scandia:
Tidskrift för historisk forskning (59): 170–171. It is fair to say
that most present-day theologians also accept that large parts of the
GospelGospel stories are, if not fictional, at least not to be taken at face
value as historical accounts. On the other hand, no theologian seems
to be able to bring himself to admit that the question of the
historicity of
JesusJesus must be judged to be an open one. It appears to
me that the theologians are not living up to their responsibility as
scholars when they refuse to discuss the possibility that even the
existence of the
JesusJesus of the
GospelsGospels can be legitimately called into
question.
Pfoh (2012), pp. 80f: "The main reason for holding to the
historicity of the figure of
JesusJesus ...resides not primarily in
historical evidence but derives instead from a modern theological
necessity."
Casey (2014), p. 23, §. Pfoh, Emanuel: "Emanuel Pfoh
...imagines that only ‘theological necessity’ gives anyone a
reason for believing in the historical Jesus."
Thompson (2005), p. 8, §. Historicizing the Figure of
Jesus, the Messiah: "The assumptions that (1) the gospels are about a
JesusJesus of history and (2) expectations that have a role within a
story’s plot were also expectations of a historical
JesusJesus and early
JudaismJudaism ...are not justified."
Lataster (2014), pp. 26ff, §. Conclusion: "[Per mainstream
JesusJesus researchers viz. Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey] the approach taken
by the scholars agreeing with the consensus view is uncritically
grounded in unjustified presuppositions, and sometimes appears as
unprofessional and unscholarly..."
Carrier (2012), p. 11: "[Per attempts to ascertain the “real”
historical Jesus] The growing consensus now is that this entire quest
for criteria has failed. The entire field of
JesusJesus studies has thus
been left without any valid method."

^ Price (2009), p. 61, §. Methodological Presuppositions:
"[W]e must keep in mind that consensus is no criterion. The truth may
not rest in the middle. The truth may not rest with the majority.
Every theory and individual argument must be evaluated on its own. If
we appeal instead to “received opinion” or “the consensus of
scholars,” we are merely abdicating our own responsibility, as well
as committing the fallacy of appeal to the majority."
^ Carrier (2012), p. 21: "I believe there is ample reason to
conclude that the consensus is not reliable in the study of the
historical
JesusJesus and therefore cannot be appealed to as evidence for a
conclusion. [...] [However] the prima facie evidence for a historical
Jesus, which constitutes all the valid evidence the consensus could
ever appeal to, still cannot be ignored. But it should be examined
anew (a task I'll undertake in the next volume [i.e. On the
Historicity of JesusHistoricity of Jesus (2014)])."
^ a b Carrier, Richard (7 October 2016). "History as a Science".
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved 30 October 2017. [Per the 1970 David
Hackett Fischer] survey of the alarming frequency with which all
fields of history engage in fallacious reasoning. [...] Historians
need to develop, apply, advocate, and enforce an explicit methodology
that conforms to proper canons of logic. [...] even attempts to
articulate a method are rare in history as a whole. Usually one
isn’t even stated. And BTW [by the way], when, as phenomenally rare
as it is, historians actually do try to articulate a method by
legitimate logic, they tend to be ignored, and their methodological
arguments are certainly never taught to historians in graduate
schools.
^ Joseph, Simon J. (12 March 2015). "The Mythical
JesusJesus – An SBL
Regional Report". Simon J. Joseph: History, Religion, and Biblical
Studies. Retrieved 29 October 2017. : "[
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier calls]
for a fundamental paradigm shift in
JesusJesus Research and historical
methodology..."
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 4: "The reality is that whatever else you may
think about Jesus, he certainly did exist. That is what this book will
set out to demonstrate."
^ Thompson (2012a), §. Comment #4: "I think it is very difficult
to establish the historicity of figures in biblical narrative, as the
issue rather relates to the quality of texts one is dealing with. I
work further on this issue in my
MessiahMessiah Myth of 2005. Here I argue
that the synoptic gospels can hardly be used to establish the
historicity of the figure of Jesus; for both the episodes and sayings
with which the figure of
JesusJesus is presented are stereotypical and have
a history that reaches centuries earlier. I have hardly shown that
JesusJesus did not exist and did not claim to."
^ Dykstra, Tom (2015). "Ehrman and Brodie on Whether
JesusJesus Existed: A
Cautionary Tale about the State of Biblical Scholarship". The Journal
of the Orthodox Center for the Advancement of Biblical Studies
(JOCABS). 8:1: 29. As for the question of whether
JesusJesus existed, the
best answer is that any attempt to find a historical
JesusJesus is a waste
of time. It can’t be done, it explains nothing, and it proves
nothing.
^ Davies, Philip (August 2012). "Did
JesusJesus Exist?".
www.bibleinterp.com. The Bible and Interpretation. Retrieved 29
January 2017. : "The rather fragile historical evidence for Jesus
of
NazarethNazareth should be tested to see what weight it can bear [...] I
don’t think, however, that in another 20 years there will be a
consensus that
JesusJesus did not exist [the "
JesusJesus atheism" viewpoint], or
even possibly didn’t exist [the "
JesusJesus agnosticism" viewpoint], but
a recognition that his existence is not entirely certain would nudge
JesusJesus scholarship towards academic respectability."
^ Hector Avalos, (June 7, 2014), A Historical or Mythical Jesus? An
Agnostic Viewpoint. Lecture given at the University of Arizona. "There
are three possible positions when it comes to Jesus. You can be a
‘historicist,’ you can be a ‘mythicist,’ or you can be an
‘agnostic’. . . An agnostic says: “Well, the data are
insufficient to settle the question one way or the other.” That’s
where I am."
^
JesusJesus agnosticism:

Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 365, n. 3: "As Robert Price puts it,
“A heavy burden of proof rests on anyone who would vindicate the
[canonical Gospels’] material as genuine.” (...this sort of
radical methodological skepticism has led Price to a “Jesus
agnosticism”—he is uncertain whether there ever was a historical
Jesus.)"
Lataster (2015a), p. 91, §. Conclusion: "Price speculates
that the sources should point historical
JesusJesus scholars in the
direction of “complete agnosticism”"

^ Avalos, Hector (Mar 2, 2013). "Who was the historical Jesus?". Ames
Tribune. GateHouse Media. Retrieved 28 August 2016. [Hector Avalos,
professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University] My own
opinion, as an academic biblical scholar, is that there is not enough
evidence to settle the question one way or the other. I am an agnostic
about the existence of the historical Jesus. A main problem continues
to be the lack of documentation from the time of
JesusJesus to establish
his existence definitively.
JesusJesus is supposed to have lived around the
year 30. But there is no mention of him anywhere in any actual
document from his own time or from the entire first century.
^ Price (2000), p. 17: "Generations of Rationalists and
freethinkers have held that
JesusJesusChristChrist corresponds to no historical
character: There never was a
JesusJesus of Nazareth. We might call this
categorical denial “
JesusJesus atheism.” What I am describing is
something different, a “
JesusJesus agnosticism.” There may have been a
JesusJesus on earth in the past, but the state of the evidence is so
ambiguous that we can never be sure what this figure was like or,
indeed, whether there was such a person."
^ a b Carrier: "The hypothesis that
JesusJesus never really existed has
started to gain more credibility in the expert community. Some now
agree historicity agnosticism is warranted, including Arthur Droge
(professor of early
ChristianityChristianity at UCSD),
Kurt Noll (associate
professor of religion at Brandon University), and Thomas Thompson
(renowned professor of theology, emeritus, at the University of
Copenhagen). Others are even more certain historicity is doubtful,
including Thomas Brodie (director emeritus of the Dominican Biblical
Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland), Robert Price (who has
two Ph.D.’s from Drew University, in theology and New Testament
studies), and myself (I have a Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia
University and have several peer reviewed articles on the subject).
Still others, like Philip Davies (professor of biblical studies,
emeritus, at the University of Sheffield), disagree with the
hypothesis but admit it is respectable enough to deserve
consideration."[331]
^ Robertson:

Robertson, Archibald (1946). Jesus: Myth or History?. Thinker's
Library, No. 110. London: Watts & Co. pp. 99ff. : "The
myth theory as stated by
J. M. RobertsonJ. M. Robertson does not exclude the
possibility of an historical Jesus. “A teacher or teachers named
Jesus” may have uttered some of the
GospelGospel sayings “at various
periods.” (
J. M. RobertsonJ. M. Robertson [1910],
ChristianityChristianity and Mythology,
revised edition, p. 125.) The
JesusJesus ben-Pandera of the
TalmudTalmud may have
led a movement round which the survivals of an ancient solar or other
cult gradually clustered. [Robertson (1910) 284ff.] It is even “not
very unlikely that there were several Jesuses who claimed to be
Messiahs.” [Robertson (1910) 287.]"
Robertson, John MacKinnon (1910).
ChristianityChristianity and Mythology. Watts
& Co. p. 125. : "All that can rationally be claimed is
that a teacher or teachers named Jesus, or several differently named
teachers called Messiahs, may have Messianically uttered some of these
teachings at various periods, presumably after the writing of the
Pauline epistles."

^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 137: "Robert Price argues that the
ancient Mediterranean world “was hip-deep in religions centering on
the death and resurrection of a savior god.” He then catalogs a wide
variety of examples to explain the rise of the
ChristChrist cult through
Paul—including the gods Baal, Tammuz/Dumuzi, Osiris, Attis,
Dionysus, Mithras, and even the Corn King. From these he concludes
that the
ChristChrist cult formed by Paul was “a Mystery cult” pure and
simple."
^ a b Lataster (2014b): "[Richard Carrier's hypothesis of ‘minimal
mythicism’], highly influenced by the work of Earl Doherty, states
that
JesusJesus was initially believed to be a celestial figure, who came
to be historicised over time."
^ Evans, Craig A. (2008). Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars
Distort the Gospels. InterVarsity Press. p. 25.
ISBN 978-0-8308-3355-9. [R. M.] Price thinks the evidence is so
weak for the historical
JesusJesus that we cannot know anything certain or
meaningful about him. He is even willing to entertain the possibility
that there never was a historical Jesus.
^ a b

Price (2011), pp. 36, 56, n. 38, §.
JesusJesus at the Vanishing
Point – Son of Scripture: "[T]he more apparent it becomes that most
GospelGospel narratives can be adequately accounted for by reference to
scriptural prototypes, Doherty suggests [
JesusJesus Puzzle (1999) 79–82,
225–230.], the more natural it is to picture early Christians
beginning with a more or less vague savior myth and seeking to lend it
color and detail by anchoring it in a particular historical period and
clothing it in scriptural garb. [First published: Price (2009),
p. 68.]"
Doherty (1999a), §. Was There No Historical Jesus?: "[M]odern
analysis of the
GospelsGospels has placed them in the category of "midrash",
a traditional Jewish scribal and teaching device in which elements
drawn from the scriptures are combined and reworked to create new
prescriptions for moral behavior and new interpretations of divine
truths. Traditional midrash often did this through entirely fictional
creations, whose story elements served symbolic purposes, like
morality tales."
Doherty (1997), §. Piece No. 8: The
GospelsGospels Not History: "John
Shelby Spong (in his Liberating the Gospels) regards the Synoptic
GospelsGospels as midrashic fiction in virtually every detail, though he
believes it was based on an historical man."

^ Bethune, Brian (23 March 2016). "Did
JesusJesus really exist?".
Macleans.ca (Macleans March 28, 2016). Rogers Media. [Richard Carrier
notes that per corroborating the
New TestamentNew Testament account of Jesus] for a
century there are no other Christian witnesses; perhaps more
inexplicably, no pagan witnesses (whose references to
JesusJesus would have
been mentioned by later Christians, either to celebrate or [to]
refute).
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 165: "[Some
ChristChrist myth theorists]
make much of the claim that there is little or no credible information
about the historical
JesusJesus to be found in first—and second—century
non-Christian sources or in Paul, the earliest Christian source.
Surely if a miracle-working prophet like the
JesusJesus of the Gospels
actually existed, it is argued, Paul and pagan contemporaries would
have mentioned his feats and his teachings. Instead, they argue, we
find a virtual silence."
^ a b Ehrman (2012), p. 34: "[The basic mythicist position is]
the negative argument, that we have no reliable witness that even
mentions a historical Jesus, and the positive one, that his story
appears to have been modeled on the accounts told of other
divinities..."

See also Doherty (1995a).
^ Argument from silence:

Carrier (2002), §. The Argument to the Best Explanation: "[Per a
critical review of The
JesusJesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty] when he argues
that the sayings and deeds of
JesusJesus are missing from the epistles (pp.
26-30) it is not the AfS [Argument from Silence] aspect of this
argument that is most effective (though it is pretty good: he shows
several examples of where we certainly should expect a detail to be
mentioned yet it is not). Rather, it is the ABE [Argument to the Best
Explanation] element..."
Carrier (2005), p. 238, §. The Argument to the Best
Explanation: "The argument to the best explanation works something
like this: any statement about the past that we are justified in
believing true to any degree must be tested against five criteria, and
if no other competing statement about the same event comes close in
meeting the same criteria, then we are more than justified in
believing it. ...In general, the more one explanation exceeds all
others on each criterion, the more confident we can be it’s true."

^ Paul's epistles:

Lataster (2015a), p. 70, §. Critiquing the Epistles:
"Paul’s knowledge of
JesusJesus comes from the Scriptures and his direct
channel to the divine rather than first-hand eyewitness accounts, he
can almost certainly be written off as a reliable and primary source
of evidence for the historical Jesus.
New TestamentNew Testament scholar Gerd
Lüdemann (University of Göttingen) agrees: “In short, Paul cannot
be considered a reliable witness to either the teachings, the life, or
the historical existence of Jesus.” (Gerd Lüdemann, “Paul as a
Witness to the Historical Jesus,” in Sources of the
JesusJesus Tradition:
Separating History from Myth, ed.
R. Joseph Hoffmann (Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, 2010), p. 212.)"
Price (2009), p. 63, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory:
"[W]e should never guess from the Epistles that
JesusJesus died in any
particular historical or political context, only that the fallen
angels (Col 2:15), the archons of this age, did him in, little
realizing they were sealing their own doom (1 Cor 2:6–8)."

^ Price (2006), pp. 66f: "Why are the gospels filled with
rewritten stories of Jonah, David, Moses, Elijah, and
ElishaElisha rather
than reports of the historical Jesus? Quite likely because the
earliest Christians, perhaps Jewish, Samaritan, and Galilean
sectarians like the Nasoreans or Essenes, did not understand their
savior to have been a figure of mundane history at all, any more than
the devotees of the cults of Attis, Hercules, Mithras, and
OsirisOsiris did.
Their gods, too, had died and risen in antiquity."
^ a b c d e Wells (2009), p. 15: "What we have in the gospels is
surely a fusion of two originally quite independent streams of
tradition [...] The Galilean preacher of the early first century who
had met with rejection, and the supernatural personage of the early
epistles, [the
JesusJesus of Paul] who sojourned briefly on Earth and then,
rejected, returned to heaven—have been condensed into one. The
[human] preacher has been given a [mythical] salvific death and
resurrection, and these have been set not in an unspecified past (as
in the early epistles) but in a historical context consonant with the
Galilean preaching. The fusion of the two figures will have been
facilitated by the fact that both owe quite a lot of their substance
in the documents—to ideas very important in the Jewish Wisdom
literature."
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 33: "Scholars such as [G. A.] Wells,
[Earl] Doherty, and [R. M.] Price argue that Paul’s view of Jesus
was not anything like the recent, contemporary Galilean figure we find
in the Gospels. ...Indeed, the Pauline
ChristChrist was actually quite close
to the sorts of divinities we find in ancient mystery religions."
^ Lataster (2016), p. 191: "[S]ceptical analyses reveal that Paul
says nothing about
JesusJesus that unambiguously situates him on Earth in
recent history."
^ a b Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 202: "While New Testament
scholars agree that Paul has relatively little to say about the life
and ministry of Jesus, most grant that Paul viewed
JesusJesus as a recent
contemporary. The most extreme legendary-
JesusJesus theorists,
however—particularly the
ChristChrist myth theorists—deny this. They
argue that nothing in Paul’s letters indicates that he believed
JesusJesus was a contemporary of his. Rather, they contend, the
JesusJesus of
Paul’s theology is a savior figure patterned after similar figures
within ancient mystery religions. According to the theory, Paul
believed that
ChristChrist entered the world at some point in the distant
past—or that he existed only in a transcendent mythical realm—and
died to defeat evil powers and redeem humanity. Only later was Jesus
remythologized [i.e. historicized] as a Jewish contemporary."
^ Carrier (2014a), p. 53: "At the origin of Christianity, Jesus
ChristChrist was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other. [...]
Like some other celestial deities, this
JesusJesus was originally believed
to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and
resurrection in a supernatural realm [not on Earth]."
^ a b c Price (2003), p. 350: "This astonishingly complete
absence of reliable gospel material begins to coincide, along its own
authentic trajectory ...with another minimalist approach to the
historical Jesus, namely, that there never was one. Most of the Dutch
Radical scholars, following Bruno Bauer, argued that all of the gospel
tradition was fabricated to historicize an originally bare datum of a
savior, perhaps derived from the Mystery Religions or
GnosticismGnosticism or
even further afield. The basic argument offered for this position, it
seems to me, is that of analogy, the resemblances between
JesusJesus and
GnosticGnostic and Mystery Religion saviors being just too numerous and close
to dismiss."
^ a b Carrier (2014b). "[Per the Jewish celestial Jesus]
PhiloPhilo says
this being was identified as the figure named “Jesus” in Zechariah
6. So it would appear that already before
ChristianityChristianity there were Jews
aware of a celestial being named
JesusJesus who had all of the attributes
the earliest Christians were associating with their celestial being
named Jesus."
^ Lataster (2014), p. 19, §. Raphael Lataster’s Jesus
Agnosticism: "[It is] clear that much of the
GospelsGospels has been
influenced by earlier religions and myths, including some clear
parallels with
PhiloPhilo of Alexandria’s
LogosLogos figure."
^ a b Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163: "
ChristChrist myth theorists
argue that Paul views
JesusJesus as a cosmic savior figure, along the lines
of a mystery-religion deity, not a historical person in the recent
past. They argue that it was only later, when the
GospelsGospels were
written, that a fictitious historical narrative was imposed on this
mythical cosmic savior figure."
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 163: "Scholars who fall within the
legendary-
JesusJesus spectrum—especially the
ChristChrist myth
theorists—typically argue that there is little-to-no independent
information regarding a historical
JesusJesus to be found in early
non-Christian sources."
^ Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 32: "[Per the references to
JesusJesus in
non-Christian sources,
ChristChrist myth theorists] argue that each of these
references is historically suspect. Some of the passages can be shown
to be Christian interpolations, and those that are not interpolations
are merely passing on hearsay—what Christians at the time were
claiming about Jesus."
^ Myth of the dying-and-rising-God:

Bromiley (1982), p. 1034: "[S]ome skeptics have sought to explain
the NT [New Testament] witness to
JesusJesus and the rise of Christianity
in terms of the Christ-myth theory. [...] His death and resurrection
suggest to some minds a variant of the myth of the dying-and-rising
god, so popular in the world of ancient pagan religion and represented
in the cults of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, and Mithras."
Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 30: "Robert Price argues that the
ancient Mediterranean world “was hip-deep in religions centering on
the death and resurrection of a savior god.” He goes on to catalog a
variety of examples to show that the “
ChristChrist cult” that arose was
just another example of these ancient death-and-resurrection
religions."
Boyd & Eddy (2007), p. 42: "[Per Earl Doherty] the only Jesus
Paul knew of was “a divine presence in Christian communities,
bestowing revelation and guidance, a channel to God and to knowledge
of spiritual truths.” [
JesusJesus Puzzle (1999) 30.] In other words,
these considerations suggest that the
JesusJesus of Paul and the earliest
Christians was little different from the various deities worshipped
and experienced within other ancient pagan mystery religions."
Ehrman (2012), p. 349, n. 20: "[G. A.] Wells differs from most
other mythicists: rather than tracing the invention of the historical
JesusJesus back to the myths about the pagan gods, Wells thinks that it
derived from Jewish wisdom traditions, in which God’s wisdom was
thought to have been a personalized being who was with him at the
creation and then came to visit humans (see, for example, Proverbs
8)."

^ Price (2000), pp. 86, 88, 91, §. The
ChristChrist Cults – The
KyriosKyrios Christos Cult: "The ancient Mediterranean world was hip-deep in
religions centering on the death and resurrection of a savior god.
[...] It is very hard not to see extensive and basic similarities
between these religions and the Christian religion. But somehow
Christian scholars have managed not to see it, and this, one must
suspect, for dogmatic reasons. [...] But it seems to me that the
definitive proof that the resurrection of the Mystery Religion saviors
preceded
ChristianityChristianity is the fact that ancient Christian apologists
did not deny it!"
^ Paul seems to have followed the earliest Christian community, traces
of which can be found in the Pauline epistles:

Miller, Robert J. (26 January 2017). Helping
JesusJesus Fulfill Prophecy.
Lutterworth Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-7188-4477-6. Paul, whose
letters are the earliest available writings about Jesus, wrote that
ChristChrist died for sins “according to the scriptures,” and was raised
on the third day “according to the scriptures.” In expressing
these beliefs Paul insisted that he was merely repeating what he had
been told by those who were believers before him (1 Cor
15:3–4).
Carrier, Richard (11 August 2016). "Dating the Corinthian Creed".
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved 2 May 2017. [The Corinthian creed
prologue (1 Cor 15:3–4) etc.] distinguishes
ChristianityChristianity from any
other sect of Judaism. So it’s the only thing Peter (Cephas) and the
other pillars (James and John) could have been preaching before Paul
joined the religion. And Paul joined it within years of its founding
(internal evidence in Paul’s letters places his conversion before 37
AD, and he attests in Galatians 1 that he was preaching the Corinthian
creed immediately thereupon: OHJ, pp. 139, 516, 536, 558).

^ Gullotta (2017), pp. 330–331, §. Paul on Jesus’ Birth
and Humanity: "[Per Paul] ‘God sent his Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as children’ (Gal 4.4.-5).
Additionally, Paul claims that
JesusJesus was ‘descended from David
according to the flesh’ (Rom 1.3) [...] when Paul writes of Jesus’
coming into the world (Gal 4.4-6; cf. Phil 2.5-8; 2 Cor 8.9; Rom
8.3-4), it is apparent that it should be taken at face value to
indicate
JesusJesus being born like any other ordinary Jewish human being,
that is, ‘born of a woman, born under the law.’ (See Larry W.
Hurtado, Lord
JesusJesus Christ: Lord
JesusJesus Christ: Devotion to
JesusJesus in
Earliest
ChristianityChristianity (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
2003), pp. 323–324; James D.G. Dunn, The
TheologyTheology of Paul the
Apostle (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998), pp.
203–204. Also see Ernest De Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the
Epistle to the GalatiansEpistle to the Galatians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1921), p. 171.)"
^ Vermes, Geza (2010). The Real Jesus: Then and Now. Augsburg
Fortress, Publishers. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-1-4514-0882-9.
The historical
JesusJesus can be retrieved only within the context of
first-century Galilean Judaism. The
GospelGospel image must therefore be
inserted into the historical canvas of Palestine in the first century
CE, with the help of the works of Flavius Josephus, the Dead Sea
Scrolls and early rabbinic literature. Against this background, what
kind of picture of
JesusJesus emerges from the Gospels? That of a rural
holy man, initially a follower of the movement of repentance launched
by another holy man, John the Baptist. In the hamlets and villages of
Lower
GalileeGalilee and the lakeside,
JesusJesus set out to preach the coming of
the
Kingdom of GodKingdom of God within the lifetime of his generation and outlined
the religious duties his simple listeners were to perform to prepare
themselves for the great event. [...] The reliability of Josephus’s
notice about
JesusJesus was rejected by many in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, but it has been judged partly genuine and partly
falsified by the majority of more recent critics. The
JesusJesus portrait
of Josephus, drawn by an uninvolved witness, stands halfway between
the fully sympathetic picture of early
ChristianityChristianity and the wholly
antipathetic image of the magician of Talmudic and post-Talmudic
Jewish literature.
^ Doherty:

Doherty (2009), pp. 16, 717, n. 18: "[Some of Paul's rivals]
proclaimed a
ChristChrist who was a Revealer Son, an imparter of wisdom and
knowledge about God, a different means to salvation. [...] [Per 1 Cor.
1:18–24, Paul defends] his position against those who do not
subscribe to his 'theology of the cross' [
ChristChrist having been
crucified] [...] [This] is a response to the challenge in Corinth from
Apollos’ preaching..."
Doherty (1996), §. Apollos of Alexandria: "Apollos was probably
a teacher of revealed knowledge which in itself claimed to confer
salvation (Koester calls it a "life-giving wisdom"). And it may be
that his preaching represented an evolution beyond earlier ideas in
seeing a spiritual
ChristChrist as a concrete divine figure who was
responsible for this revelation, a
ChristChrist who had grown out of
Alexandrian traditions of personified Wisdom (Sophia) wedded with the
Greek Logos."
Doherty (2012), §. The Sound of Transition: from Paul to
Orthodoxy: "[Per 1 Cor. 1; 2 Cor. 11] Paul is promoting his own
version of the Son as a “
ChristChrist crucified,” with the strong
implication that he is dealing with rivals and other circles of faith
which do not believe in a crucified or sacrificed figure, but simply
in a spiritual Revealer Son who saves by bestowing knowledge of God
(just as survives in the
GospelGospel of John from before the grafting on of
the Synoptics’ human
JesusJesus and his crucifixion). This [is a] stream
of thought, which probably arose out of the whole intermediary
Son/
LogosLogos philosophy of thinkers like Philo..."

Price (2000), pp. 79ff, 83, §. The
ChristChrist Cults – The
GnosticGnosticChristChrist Cult: "Walter Schmithals [The Office of Apostle in the
Early Church. Translated by John E. Steely. New York: Abingdon Press.
1969. ] noticed various puzzling inconsistencies in the several
New TestamentNew Testament uses of the term “apostle,” as well as certain
patterns to those inconsistencies. [...] Schmithals systematically
examined all the hitherto suggested possible origins of the Christian
idea of the apostles and finally traced it down to Syrian Gnosticism.
[...] But whether Paul embraced the Syrian
GnosticismGnosticism or not,
Schmithals’s researches would in any case delineate for us the basis
of a pre-
JesusJesus cult of the Christ, one in which the
ChristChrist had nothing
in particular to do with
JesusJesus the Nazorean."
Doherty (2000), §. The Roots of an Elevation: "[Per the
descending Redeemer of gnostic-style myth] Price sees the Pauline
ChristChrist in this same category... Inherent in such a (proto-) gnostic
type of outlook is the idea that
ChristChrist inhabits the believer, and the
apostle who preaches him possesses a highly developed sense of the
Christ/Redeemer within himself. Paul, with his "
ChristChrist in you" and
"all are members of the body of Christ," falls into that line of
thinking."

^ Philo:

Wells (1999a), p. 97, §. Conclusion: The Origins and
Development of Christology: "[Per Philo] Talbert has shown, he [Philo]
was allegorizing a myth, already current in Alexandrian Judaism, in
which a heavenly redeemer figure, described as
LogosLogos or Wisdom among
other terms, certainly did figure as a person. From Talbert’s
evidence (1976, pp. 421ff), there can be no doubt that a myth of such
a “figure who descended and ascended in the course of his/her saving
work existed in pre-Christian
JudaismJudaism alongside first—and
second—century Christianity” (p. 430). [Talbert, C.H. 1976. The
Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity.
NTS 22, 418–440.] The influence of Jewish
Wisdom literature on Paul
is undeniable: statements made about Wisdom [personified] in this
literature are made of
JesusJesus in the Pauline letters."
Doherty (2012), §.
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman on G. A. Wells: "[Per] the Wisdom
of Solomon in the Jewish apocrypha, which is usually dated some time
early in the first century, during the lifetime of both
PhiloPhilo and Paul
[...] Here we have a dramatic presentation of an intermediary entity
standing proud beside God in heaven, a dangerously close compromise to
strict monotheism. It is cut from the same cloth as Philo’s picture
of the Logos. And it bears an undeniable resemblance to similar
presentations of the Son throughout the
New TestamentNew Testament epistles."

^ Thompson, Thomas L. (2009). "Historicizing the Figure of Jesus, the
Messiah". The
MessiahMessiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of
JesusJesus and David.
Basic Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-7867-3911-0. The assumptions
that (1) the gospels are about a
JesusJesus of history and (2) expectations
that have a role within a story’s plot were also expectations of a
historical
JesusJesus and early Judaism, as we will see, are not
justified.
^ Doherty, Earl (Spring 1997). "A review of a book by Burton L. Mack
on the making of the Christian myth". Humanist in Canada. 120:
12–13. Archived from the original on August 30, 2000. Earl Doherty
has published a much expanded version of this review at the following
Web site, where he has also reproduced his series "The
JesusJesus Puzzle,"
which appeared in recent issues of Humanist in Canada:
http://www.magi.com/~oblio/jesus.html.
^ Gullotta (2017), pp. 311–312, n. 34: "[Richard Carrier’s
name and work has been mentioned on several popular news sites, with
mythicism being the headline of the article.] For examples, see
Raphael Lataster, ‘Did historical
JesusJesus really exist? The evidence
just doesn’t add up’, The Washington Post (2014), para. 1–11.
Online:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/18/did-historical-jesus-exist-the-traditional-evidence-doesnt-hold-up/
[accessed ca. 2015]; Valerie Tarico, ‘5 good reasons to think Jesus
never existed’, Salon (2015), para. 1–19. Online:
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/06/5_good_reasons_to_think_jesus_never_existed/
[accessed ca. 2015]; Brian Bethune, ‘Did
JesusJesus really exist?’
MacLean’s (2016), para. 1–25. Online:
http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/did-jesus-really-exist-2/
[accessed ca. 2016]; Nigel Barber, ‘
JesusJesus Never Existed, After
All’,
The Huffington PostThe Huffington Post (2016), para. 1–17. Online:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nigel-barber/jesus-never-existed-after_b_9848702.html
[accessed ca. 2016]; Philip Perry, ‘A Growing Number of Scholars Are
Questioning the Historic Existence of Jesus’, Big Think (2016),
para. 1–13. Online:
http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/a-growing-number-of-scholars-are-questioning-the-existence-of-jesus
[accessed ca. 2016]."
^ Gullotta, Daniel N. (2 February 2015). "Why You Should Read
Carrier's On the Historicity of Jesus". Archived from the original on
14 February 2015. : "What is also significant about [Richard]
Carrier’s body of work related to Mythicism is that it represents
the result of a $20,000 research grant from various supporters and
donations overseen by Atheists United, which demonstrates the
public’s interest in the subject matter. [...] the academic
community committed to the study of the
New TestamentNew Testament and Christian
origins needs to pay attention to Carrier and engage with his thesis
(even if they end up rejecting his conclusions); and if for no other
reason than that he has the attention of the public."
^ Ehrman (2012), p. 337f, §. Conclusion – The Mythicist
Agenda: "[Some] mythicists are avidly antireligious. To debunk
religion, then, one needs to undermine specifically the Christian form
of religion. [...] the mythicists who are so intent on showing that
the historical
JesusJesus never existed are not being driven by a
historical concern. Their agenda is religious, and they are complicit
in a religious ideology. They are not doing history; they are doing
theology."
^ Michael Grant (a classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no
serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non-historicity of
Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in
disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the
contrary." in Jesus: An Historian's Review of the
GospelsGospels by Michael
Grant 2004 ISBN 1898799881 page 200

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Doherty2009_pvii–viii"
is not used in the content (see the help page).

Price (2005), p. 534, §. Introduction
^ a b c d e f g Thompson (2012a)
^ a b c Price (2003), pp. 351–355, §. Conclusion: The
Name of the Lord – The Name Above All Names
^ Lataster 2016a, p. 65.
^ Price (1999)
^ a b Thompson & Verenna (2012)
^ Price (2009), p. 65, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth
Theory. "Some mythicists (the early
G. A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard)
thought that the first Christians had in mind
JesusJesus who had lived as a
historical figure, just not of the recent past, much as the average
Greek believed Hercules and Achilles really lived somewhere back there
in the past."

Doherty (2012), §.
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman on G. A. Wells. "[G. A.] Wells
interprets Paul as concluding that
ChristChrist had been born, lived and
died on earth at an unknown time in the past, though he opts for Paul
locating this during the reign of Alexander Janneus (103–76 BCE),
known to have crucified hundreds of his rabbinic opponents."

^ a b c d e f Van Voorst (2000), p. 9. "[Per Bruno Bauer]
ChristianityChristianity and its
ChristChrist ...were born in
RomeRome and Alexandria when
adherents of Roman Stoicism, Greek Neo-
PlatonismPlatonism and
JudaismJudaism combined
to form a new religion that needed a founder."
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Doherty 1995a.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Doherty 1995d.
^ Price 2000, p. 86.
^
G. A. Wells ap. Eddy & Boyd (2007), p. 203,
§. Paul’s Lack of Historical Information. "[Paul’s] letters
have no allusion to the parents of Jesus, let alone to the virgin
birth. They never refer to a place of birth. . . . They give no
indication of the time or place of his earthly existence. They do not
refer to his trial before a Roman official, nor to
JerusalemJerusalem as the
place of execution. They mention neither John the Baptist, nor Judas,
nor Peter’s denial of his master. . . . These letters also fail to
mention any miracles
JesusJesus is supposed to have worked, a particularly
striking omission, since, according to the gospels he worked so many.
(G. A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for
JesusJesus (Buffalo, NY:
Prometheus, 1982), 22.)"
^ Wells (1999a), pp. 94–111, §. Conclusion: The Origins
and Development of Christology

Wells (1999b). "The Jewish literature describes Wisdom [personified]
as God's chief agent, a member of his divine council, etc., and this
implies supernatural, but not, I agree, divine status."
Wells (2009), p. 328. "I have always allowed that Paul believed
in a
JesusJesus who, fundamentally supernatural, had nevertheless been
incarnated on Earth as a man."

^ Couchoud (1939), p. 33, §. Elements of Christianity.
"[Per Numb. xiii. 17,
SeptuagintSeptuagint xiii. 16, A.V.]
MosesMoses called Oshea
[the son of Nun, by the theological title] Joshua, which means Jahweh
saves. Jahweh [the deity] means when he says of Oshea “My Name is
upon him” that one of the names of God is Jahweh saves. ...
JoshuaJoshua in
Hebrew, Iesous in Greek,
JesusJesus in Latin, is the personal name of the
Son of Man, of the Christ, our Lord. It is the name “which is above
every name, that at the name of
JesusJesus every knee should bow of those
in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth” (Phil.
ii. 9–10)."

Price (2009), p. 64, §. The Traditional Christ-Myth Theory.
"[Per the name Jesus] Philippians 2:9–11, read without theological
embarrassment, seems to intend that it was that name [Jesus], exalted
above all other names, that the savior received, not the title
kyrios."

^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 13. "[G. A.] Wells argues that the
GospelsGospels contain much that is demonstrably legendary, and they are
directed by theological (not historical) purposes."
^ a b Thompson (2005), p. 3, §. Historicizing the Figure of
Jesus, the Messiah. "
New TestamentNew Testament scholars commonly hold the opinion
that a historical person would be something very different from the
ChristChrist (or messiah), with whom, for example, the author of the Gospel
of Mark identifies his
JesusJesus (Hebrew:
JoshuaJoshua = savior), opening his
book with the statement: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus
Christ, God’s son.”"
^ a b Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 314ff, n. 23. "[Per] Scholars
who classify the
GospelsGospels as “fiction”... There is no consensus
among scholars within this camp as to what exact kind of fiction the
GospelsGospels are intended to be. Candidates include ...“legend,” (R. M.
Price, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man: How Reliable Is the Gospel
Tradition? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003), 21.)"

Price (2003), p. 21. "If some
New TestamentNew Testament miracle stories find
no parallel in contemporary experience, they do have parallels, often
striking ones, in other ancient writings that no one takes to be
anything other than mythical or legendary."

^ a b c Eddy & Boyd (2007), pp. 137f. "Robert Price goes so
far as to argue that every aspect of the
JesusJesus story found in the
GospelsGospels fits the “mythic hero archetype, with nothing left over.”
With such a strong correspondence between
JesusJesus and universally
acknowledged mythic figures, the suggestion that the
JesusJesus story is
rooted in history while the other hero stories are not seems highly
implausible to some."

Price (2000), p. 259. "Alan Dundes has shown, the gospel life of
JesusJesus corresponds in most particulars with the worldwide paradigm of
the Mythic Hero Archetype as delineated by Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, and
others."
Price (2003), p. 21. "The
GospelsGospels come under serious suspicion
because there is practically nothing in them that does not conform to
this “Mythic Hero Archetype”."

^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 69, n. 120. "Those who, over the last two
hundred years, have doubted the existence of
JesusJesus have argued that
the lack of contemporary corroboration of
JesusJesus by classical authors
is a main indication that he did not exist. (See, e.g., The Existence
of
ChristChrist Disproved (London: Heatherington, 1841) 214. More recently,
see Michael Martin, The Evidence against
ChristianityChristianity (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press. 1991).)"
^ Van Voorst (2000), p. 9. "[Bruno Bauer] argued that the lack of
mention of
JesusJesus in non-Christian writings of the first century shows
that
JesusJesus did not exist. Neither do the few mentions of
JesusJesus by
Roman writers in the early second century establish his existence."
^ a b Van Voorst (2000), p. 13. "[Per Jesus] Wells argues, we
need independent corroboration from other, “objective” sources to
affirm his existence. He [Wells] minutely examines these proposed
other sources, from
TacitusTacitus to Talmud, and finds that they contain no
independent traditions about Jesus. Therefore, they are not admissible
[evidence]."

Wells, George A. (12 August 2011). "Is There Independent Confirmation
of What the
GospelsGospels Say of Jesus?". Free Inquiry. Vol. 31
no. 5.
Wells, George A. (24 May 2012). "Ehrman on the Historicity of Jesus
and Early Christian Thinking". Free Inquiry. Vol. 32 no. 4.
Ehrman acknowledges that pagan and Jewish testimony is too late to
establish that
JesusJesus lived [...] [But per
TacitusTacitus and Josephus] Ehrman
seems a little reluctant to surrender these two witnesses altogether,
for he reverts to them (97), saying that ‘
TacitusTacitus and (possibly)
Josephus... indirectly provide independent attestation to Jesus's
existence from outside the gospels,’ for they ‘heard
information’ about him from informants who ‘themselves had heard
stories about him’ from Christians who may in turn ‘have simply
heard stories about him.’ Of course there were umpteen stories about
him current by the late first and early second centuries; but what
they attest to is not Jesus’s existence but rather to belief in his
existence.

^ a b Lataster (2015a), p. 75, §. Critiquing the Canonical
Gospels. "
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier also raises the possibility (and perhaps the
need to be cautious) that all sources dated after the
GospelGospel of Mark
could have been tainted by it, and that this simply cannot be ruled
out."

Carrier (2015), p. 418. "[T]here is no independent evidence of
Jesus’s existence outside the New Testament. All external evidence
for his existence, even if it were fully authentic (though much of it
isn’t), cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels, or
Christian informants relying on the Gospels. None of it can be shown
to independently corroborate the
GospelsGospels as to the historicity of
Jesus. Not one single item of evidence. Regardless of why no
independent evidence survives (it does not matter the reason), no such
evidence survives."

Bultmann, Rudolf (1934).
JesusJesus and the Word. trans.
JesusJesus (1926) by
Louise Pettibone Smith and Erminie Huntress Lantero. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons. p. 8. [W]e can now know almost nothing
concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early
Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary
and often legendary; and other sources about
JesusJesus do not exist.
^ a b Price, Robert (2009). "Bruno Bauer,
ChristChrist and the Caesars,
reviewed by Robert M. Price". Retrieved 19 November 2016. Reading the
prescient
Bruno BauerBruno Bauer one has the eerie feeling that a century of New
Testament scholarship may find itself ending up where it began. For
instance, the work of Burton Mack, Vernon Robbins, and others makes a
powerful case for understanding the gospels as Cynic–Stoic in
tone.... Robert M. Fowler, Frank Kermode, and
Randel Helms have
demonstrated how thoroughly the gospels smack of fictional
composition. Thus, from many directions,
New TestamentNew Testament researchers
seem to be converging uncannily on the theses that
Bruno BauerBruno Bauer set
forth over a century ago.
^ http://www.lmc.edu/directory/employee/vines-michael.htm
^ e.g. Vines, M. E. (2002). The Problem of the Markan Genre: The
GospelGospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel. Atlanta: Society of Biblical
Literature. pp. 161–162.
^ a b Dawkins, 2006, p. 97
^ Thomas L. Brodie. Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus: Memoir
of a Discovery Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012 ISBN 978-1907534584
^ Price 2011, p. 381.
^ Price 2003, p. 347.
^ Moggach, Douglas. The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer.
Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 184. *Also see Engels, Frederick.
"
Bruno BauerBruno Bauer and Early Christianity", Der Sozialdemokrat, May 1882.
^ a b Wells 1999.
^ a b c Doherty 1997.
^ a b c Doherty 2009.
^ Allan, William (2014). Classical Literature: A Very Short
Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 15.
ISBN 978-0199665457.
^ Ehrman, 2012, p. 44
^ Timothy Barnes Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early
Christianity: Origins and Evolution to AD 600. 1991, p. 232
ISBN 0687114446
^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did
JesusJesus Exist?. New York: HarperOne.
p. 44. And what records from that decade do we have from his
reign, what Roman records of his major accomplishments, his daily
itinerary, the decrees he passed, the laws he issued, the prisoners he
put on trial, the death warrants he signed, his scandals, interviews,
his judicial proceedings? We have none. Nothing at all.
^ a b Hutchinson, Robert (2015). Searching for Jesus. Nashville:
Nelson Books. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-7180-1830-6.
^ Grant 1995.
^ Bart D. Ehrman. Did
JesusJesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus
of Nazareth, HarperCollins, 2012, p. 47 ISBN 978-0-06-220460-8
^ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The
JesusJesus Legend: A Case
for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic
JesusJesus Tradition. Baker
Academic. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple
University Press. p. 52. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1. [P]agan
witnesses indicate that there is no reliable evidence that supports
the historicity of Jesus. This is surely surprising given the fact
that
JesusJesus was supposed to be a well-known person in the area of the
world ruled by Rome. One would surely have supposed that there would
have been some surviving records of
JesusJesus if he did exist. Their
absence, combined with the absence of Jewish records, suggests that
NEP [Negative Evidence Principle] applies and that we are justified in
disbelieving that
JesusJesus existed.
^ Gerald O'Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and
Systematic Study of Jesus. 2009, pp. 1–3 ISBN 0-19-955787-X
^ Peder Borgen,
PhiloPhilo of Alexandria. 1997, p. 14 ISBN 9004103880
^ The Cambridge Companion to
JesusJesus by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001
ISBN 0521796784 pp. 121–125
^ Bruce David Chilton; Craig Alan Evans (1998). Studying the
Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research. Brill.
pp. 460–470. ISBN 90-04-11142-5.
^
JesusJesus and the Gospels: An Introduction and Survey by Craig L.
Blomberg 2009 ISBN 0-8054-4482-3 pp. 431–436
^ Van Voorst (2000) pp. 39–53
^ Crossan 1995, p. 145.
^ Schreckenberg, Heinz; Kurt Schubert (1992). Jewish Traditions in
Early Christian Literature. ISBN 90-232-2653-4.
^ Kostenberger, Andreas J.; L. Scott Kellum; Charles L. Quarles
(2009). The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the
New Testament. ISBN 0-8054-4365-7.
^ Kenneth A. Olson,
EusebiusEusebius and the Testimonium Flavianum. The
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (2): 305, 1999
^ Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Boyd, Gregory A. (2007). The
JesusJesus Legend: A Case
for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic
JesusJesus Tradition. Baker
Academic. p. 197 n. 103). ISBN 978-0-8010-3114-4.
^ Maier 2007, pp. 336–337.
^ Louth 1990.
^ McGiffert 2007.
^ Olson 1999.
^ Wallace-Hadrill 2011.
^ The new complete works of
JosephusJosephus by Flavius Josephus, William
Whiston, Paul L. Maier ISBN 0-8254-2924-2 pp. 662–663
^
JosephusJosephus XX by
Louis H. FeldmanLouis H. Feldman 1965, ISBN 0674995023 p. 496
^ Van Voorst, Robert E. (2000).
JesusJesus Outside the New Testament: An
Introduction to the Ancient Evidence ISBN 0-8028-4368-9. p. 83
^ Flavius Josephus; Maier, Paul L. (December 1995). Josephus, the
essential works: a condensation of Jewish antiquities and The Jewish
war ISBN 978-0-8254-3260-6 pp. 284–285
^ a b Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The
JesusJesus Legend: A Case for
the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic
JesusJesus Tradition. p. 189
ISBN 0-8010-3114-1
^ a b c Carrier 2012.
^ Robert M. Price. The Christ-Myth Theory and its Problems, Atheist
Press, 2011, p. 132, ISBN 9781578840175
^ The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ, by
Gary R. Habermas, College Press, 1996. pp. 31–35
^ P.E. Easterling, E. J. Kenney (general editors), The Cambridge
History of Latin Literature, p. 892 (Cambridge University Press, 1982,
reprinted 1996). ISBN 0-521-21043-7
^ Translation from Latin by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, 1876
^ a b Robert E. Van Voorst,
JesusJesus Outside the New Testament: An
Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000. pp.
39–53
^ Eddy, Paul; Boyd, Gregory (2007). The
JesusJesus Legend: A Case for the
Historical Reliability of the Synoptic
JesusJesus Tradition Baker Academic,
ISBN 0-8010-3114-1 p. 127
^ F.F. Bruce,
JesusJesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament,
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) p. 23
^ Theissen & Merz 1998, p. 83.
^ Martin, Michael (1993-03). The Case Against Christianity.
pp. 50–51. ISBN 9781566390811. Check date values in:
date= (help)
^ The
Historical JesusHistorical Jesus in the Twentieth Century: 1900–1950, By
Walter P. Weaver, pp. 53, 57, at
https://books.google.com/books?id=1CZbuFBdAMUC&pg=PA45&dq=historicity+of+jesus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=o-_8U5-yEtTH7AbBpoCoAg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=tacitus&f=false
^ Secret of Regeneration, By Hilton Hotema, p. 100, at
https://books.google.com/books?id=jCaopp3R5B0C&pg=PA100&dq=interpolations+in+tacitus&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CRf-U9-VGZCe7AbxrIDQCA&ved=0CCAQ6AEwATge#v=onepage&q=interpolations%20in%20tacitus&f=false
^ Jesus, University Books, New York, 1956, p. 13
^ France, RT (1986). Evidence for
JesusJesus (
JesusJesus Library). Trafalgar
Square Publishing. pp. 19–20. ISBN 0-340-38172-8.
^ Price, Robert M. (2006). The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four
Formative Texts. Signature Books. p. 240.
ISBN 978-1-56085-194-3. [Per the Toledot Yeshu] One of the chief
points of interest in this work is its chronology, placing
JesusJesus about
100 BCE. [...] Epiphanius and the
TalmudTalmud also attest to Jewish and
Jewish-Christian belief in
JesusJesus having lived a century or so before
we usually imagine, implying that perhaps the
JesusJesus figure was at
first an ahistorical myth and various attempts were made to place him
in a plausible historical context, just as Herodotus and others tried
to figure out when Hercules “must have” lived.
^ Mead, G. R. S. (1903). Did
JesusJesus Live One Hundred B. C. ?.
London: Theosophical Publishing Society. pp. 137ff.
ISBN 978-0-7873-0603-8. [Per] a passage found not once but twice
in the Babylonian Gemârâ. [...] This famous passage, if taken by
itself, would of course fully confirm the hypothesis of the 100 years
B.C. date of Jesus.
^ [Panarion 29.5.6] "For by hearing just the name of Jesus, and seeing
the miracles the apostles performed, they came to faith in Jesus
themselves. But they found that he had been conceived at
NazarethNazareth and
brought up in Joseph's home, and for this reason is called “Jesus
the Nazoraean” in the
GospelGospel as the apostles say, “
JesusJesus the
Nazoraean, a man approved by signs and wonders,” and so on. Hence
they adopted this name, so as to be called Nazoreans."
^ Carrier, Richard (2009). Not the Impossible Faith. Lulu.
p. 293, n. 10. ISBN 978-0-557-04464-1. Nasaraeans and
Ossaeans: Epiphanius, Panarion 18–19 (the Nasaraeans should not be
confused with the Nazoreans, which appears to have been the original
name for the Christians (and thus the collective name for
Torah-observant Christians): Epiphanius, Panarion 29; Jerome, Epistles
112.13; Acts 24:5.
^ Carrier, Richard (19 April 2012). "Ehrman on Jesus: A Failure of
Facts and Logic".
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier Blog. Retrieved 27 August
2017.
^ Carrier (2014a), pp. 284ff.
^
Robert E. Van Voorst (2000).
JesusJesus Outside the New Testament: An
Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
p. 217. ISBN 0-8028-4368-9.
^ Pagels 1979.
^ Ehrman 2005.
^ Garrett, Susan R. (2008). No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and
Christian Claims about Jesus. Yale University Press. p. 238.
ISBN 978-0-300-14095-8. By the late Second Temple era, the
various traditions about angels and about personified divine
attributes had coalesced for some
JewsJews into the figure of a chief
heavenly mediator. This figure is depicted by the author of Daniel as
“one like a son of man,” by the author
PhiloPhilo as “the divine
logos,” and by other writers in still other ways.
^ Gieschen, Charles A. (1998). Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents
and Early Evidence. Brillisbn=90-04-10840-8. p. 316, n. 6.
Although Paul does not overtly label
ChristChrist as “the Angel of the
Lord” in any of his letters, Paul does identify
ChristChrist as “the
Power", “Wisdom”, “the Heavenly Man”, and especially as “the
Glory”, all of which have angelomorphic roots closely linked with
the Angel of the Lord; see Quispel, “Ezekiel 1.28 in Jewish
Mysticism”, 7–13. Segal, Paul the Convert, 35–71. and Newman,
Paul's Glory-Christology, 241–247.
^ Ehrman, Bart D. (June 7, 2014). "
ChristChrist as an Angel in Paul". The
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman Blog. Retrieved 9 May 2017. I did indeed find [C. A.]
Gieschen’s argument that Paul understood
JesusJesus as an angel prior to
becoming human extremely provocative and convincing. His arguments are
supported and advanced in a very interesting discussion of Susan R.
Garrett in her book. No Ordinary Angel.
^ Barker, Margaret (1992). The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second
God. pp. 190–233. ISBN 0-664-25395-4. Several writers of
the first three Christian centuries show by their descriptions of the
First and Second persons of the Trinity whence they derived these
beliefs. El Elyon had become for them God the Father and Yahweh, the
Holy One of Israel, the Son, had been identified with Jesus.
^ Carrier, Richard. "So...if
JesusJesus Didn't Exist, Where Did He Come
from Then?" (PDF). www.richardcarrier.info. Retrieved 12 May 2016. The
Official Website of Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
^ Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, pp. 200–205.

^ Schäfer, Peter (2011). The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton
University Press. p. 159. ISBN 0-691-14215-7. It is more
than likely that
PhiloPhilo knew the postbiblical Wisdom literature, in
particular the Wisdom of Solomon. and was influenced by it. The
obvious identification of
LogosLogos and Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon is
a case in point. Wisdom (Greek sophia) plays a prominent role in Philo
as well and is yet another power among the divine powers that acts as
an agent of creation. Whereas the Logos, as we have seen, is
responsible for the intelligible world, Wisdom would seem to be
responsible for the world perceived by the senses.
^ Wahlde, Urban C. von (2015). Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms
of the First Century: The Search for the Wider Context of the
Johannine Literature and Why It Matters. Bloomsbury Publishing.
p. 171. ISBN 978-0-567-65659-9. [T]wo currents of Jewish
thought—
Wisdom literature and the philosophical writings of
Philo—influenced by Hellenism, are now thought to be the prime
contenders for furnishing the background to the
LogosLogos of the Johannine
Prologue.
^ Price (2010), p. 103, n. 5. "Bolland, De Evangelische Jozua;
Rylands, The Evolution of Christianity; Rylands, The Beginnings of
GnosticGnostic Christianity; Zindler, The
JesusJesus the
JewsJews Never Knew, 340, and
others similarly held that
ChristianityChristianity began variously among
Hellenized Jewish settlements throughout the Diaspora, with
allegorized Jewish elements being made almost unrecognizable by their
intermingling with gnostic mythemes."

Price (2002), §. Suitors and Seducers. "The temptations and
challenges of the Diaspora only served to increase the diversity of
ancient Judaism, a diversity directly reflected in emerging
Christianity, which demonstrably partakes of Jewish Gnosticism
[Schmithals, 1975; Scholem, 1965], Zoroastrianism [Welburn, 1991], the
Mystery Cults, etc.

[Walter Schmithals, The Apocalyptic Movement: Introduction and
Interpretation. Trans. John E. Steely (NY: Abingdon Press, 1975;
Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic
Tradition. NY: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2nd ed., 1965),
esp. chapter IX, "The Relationship between
GnosticGnostic and Jewish
Sources," pp. 65-74.] [Andrew Welburn, The Beginnings of Christianity:
EsseneEssene Mystery,
GnosticGnostic Revelation and the Christian Vision
(Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991), pp. 44–51. The identification of
the Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Adam as Zoroastrian in substance has
enormous implications.]"
^ Lataster (2016), pp. 182, 184, §. Ehrman on
Angelic/Angelomorphic Christology. "[Paul refers to] divine
revelations from a Celestial
JesusJesus (who seems eerily similar to
pre-Christian Jewish—and non-existent—figures like the Son of Man
and the Logos) [...] Historicists and mythicists both posit a
different form of
JesusJesus that preceded the Gospel’s version of Jesus.
Unfortunately for the historicist, there is not a single piece of
evidence, pre-New Testament, for the mundane Historical Jesus. This is
not the case with the Celestial Messiah, who some pre-Christian Jews
did honour, as even [Bart] Ehrman now acknowledges."

Carrier, Richard (13 February 2016). "Can Paul's Human
JesusJesus Not Be a
Celestial Jesus?".
Richard CarrierRichard Carrier Blogs. Retrieved 14 June 2017. [Per
the Logos]
PhiloPhilo in fact says this “heavenly man” is the first
created being and viceroy of God, the “image” of God, God’s
“firstborn son,” high priest of God’s celestial temple, the
supreme archangel, whom God tasked with the rest of creation, and who
governs the universe on God’s behalf.
PhiloPhilo says this Being is the
Logos. [...]
Bart EhrmanBart Ehrman “also now agrees that
PhiloPhilo attests a
Jewish theology in which the
LogosLogos is the firstborn
Son of GodSon of God and the
eternal Image of God, the same being
JesusJesus was identified with” in
Paul (cf. How
JesusJesus Became God, p. 75).

Also see Wood, Herbert George:
ChristianityChristianity and the Nature of History.
Cambridge University Press, 1934, p. xxxii.
Arthur Drews: Die Christusmythe. Eugen Diederichs, 1910, published in
English as The
ChristChrist Myth, Prometheus, 1910, p. 410.

^ Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity", in
Leslie Houlden (ed.)
JesusJesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO,
2003, p. 749.
^ Peris, Daniel. Storming the Heavens. Cornell University Press, 1998,
p. 178.
^ Russell, Bertrand. "Why I am not a Christian", lecture to the
National Secular Society, Battersea Town Hall, March 6, 1927,
Retrieved 2010-08-02.
^ Corydon, Bent; Brian Ambry (1992). L. Ron Hubbard:
MessiahMessiah or
Madman?. Barricade Books. p. 353. ISBN 0-942637-57-7.
^ The historical
JesusJesus in the twentieth century, 1900–1950 by Walter
P. Weaver, 1999 ISBN Continuum Publishing Group, 1999, pp. 300–303
^ vridar.org, Earl Doherty’s forerunner?
Paul-Louis Couchoud and the
birth of Christ. Doherty: "It wasn’t until the 1920s that Paul-Louis
Couchoud in France offered a more coherent scenario, identifying
ChristChrist in the eyes of Paul as a spiritual being. (While not relying
upon him, I would trace my type of thinking back to Couchoud, rather
than the more recent
G. A. Wells who, in my opinion, misread Paul’s
understanding of Christ."
^ Hibbert Journal 37 (1938–9), pp. 193–214
^ Wells 1971, Wells 1975, Wells 1982
^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple
University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-56639-081-1.
^ Habermas, Gary R (1996). The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for
the Life of Christ. College Pr Pub Co; Subsequent edition.
pp. 37–38. ISBN 0899007325.
^ Martin, Michael (1993). The Case Against Christianity. Temple
University Press. p. 67. ISBN 1566390818.
^ Wells (2004), pp. 49f. "In my first books on
JesusJesus [1971, 1975,
1982], I argued that the gospel
JesusJesus is an entirely mythical
expansion of the
JesusJesus of the early epistles. ...The weakness of my
earlier position was pressed upon me by J.D.G. Dunn [The Evidence for
Jesus, 1985], who objected that we really cannot plausibly assume that
such a complex of traditions as we have in the gospels and their
sources could have developed within such a short time from the early
epistles without a historical basis (Dunn 1985, p. 29)."
^ George Albert Wells, G. A. (2000). "A Reply to J.P. Holding..."
infidels.org. Retrieved 24 April 2017. [Per the gospels, the
historical Galilean preacher of Q is placed in a historical context
consonant with the date of the Galilean preaching.] Now that I have
allowed this in my two most recent relevant books [1996, 1999] ...it
will not do to dub me a "mythicist" tout court. Moreover, my revised
standpoint obviates the criticism ...which J. D. G Dunn levelled at me
in 1985.
^ Wells, George Albert (1999). The
JesusJesus myth. Open Court.
ISBN 0812693922.
^ Wells (2009), p. 16. "I regarded (and still do regard) [that
the following stories;] the virgin birth, much in the Galilean
ministry, the crucifixion around A.D. 30 under Pilate, and the
resurrection—as legendary."
^ For a more brief statement of his position, Wells refers readers to
his article, "Jesus, Historicity of" in Tom Flynn's The New
Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, 2007, pp. 446ff. Per
Wells, G. A. Cutting
JesusJesus Down to Size. Open Court, 2009, pp.
327–328.
^ Doherty, Earl (1999). "
BookBook and Article Reviews, The Case of the
JesusJesus Myth:
JesusJesus – One Hundred Years Before
ChristChrist by Alvar
Ellegard". Retrieved 2011-10-07. G. A. Wells, the current and
longstanding doyen of modern
JesusJesus mythicists. Wells' invaluable work
has influenced an entire generation of those who research and write on
this subject.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2012). Did
JesusJesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for
JesusJesus of Nazareth. HarperCollins. p. 15.
ISBN 978-0-06-208994-6. [Among
New TestamentNew Testament scholars] The
best-known mythicist of modem times ...is George A. Wells.
Casey, Maurice (2014). Jesus: Evidence and Argument or Mythicist
Myths?. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 10, 25.
ISBN 978-0-567-01505-1. I introduce here the most influential
mythicists who claim to be ‘scholars’, though I would question
their competence and qualifications. [...] [G. A. Wells] was convinced
that there was no historical Jesus, and wrote more than one book to
this effect. More recently, he modified his views, especially in the
light of relatively recent work on what many scholars call
‘Q’.

There is no mention of a miracle working
JesusJesus in secular sources. (p.
62)
The epistles, which were written before the gospels, do not evidence a
recent historical Jesus. (p. 63)
The
JesusJesus story shows strong parallels to other Mediterranean
religions that were also based on gods that died and rose again. (p.
75)

Religious Tolerance General outline of range of views on
JesusJesus from
classical Christian to
JesusJesus a mere man and
JesusJesus entirely mythical
Vridar, WHO’s WHO: Mythicists and Mythicist Agnostics
Demolishing the historicity of
JesusJesus – A History List of
Contemporary and Early proponents of
ChristChrist Myth Theory.